


My beating heart belongs to you

by TullyBlue



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Anxious Five, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Child Abuse, Childhood Trauma, F/M, First Kiss, Five doesn't time travel, Five low-key has a sweet tooth, Fix-It, Forehead Kisses, Hurt/Comfort, Pseudo-Incest, Slow Burn, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Teenagers, Underage Drug Use, Underage Smoking, a bit of angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-04
Updated: 2019-11-30
Packaged: 2020-01-04 17:18:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 19
Words: 90,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18348185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TullyBlue/pseuds/TullyBlue
Summary: There were no coherent thoughts in his mind as he reached around, curling his hand around the base of her neck and pressing his palm flat against her own illuminated mark, only a burning heat in every vein of his body. The light in her eyes drew him like a moth to flame and he was already on fire.A bond like no other, forged from a pair of unusual soulmarks, changes Five Hargreeves in ways he'd never imagine. He never doubted that his soulmate would be anyone but Vanya; he never imagined the things he would learn with her at his side. Five decides to undertake the enormous task of pulling his siblings from the brink of self-destruction, all while under the watchful and unrelenting gaze of Reginald Hargreeves.





	1. The moonlight of my life

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a soulmate AU, one of my personal favorite tropes. An image will appear on your right wrist on your thirteenth birthday, related to your soulmate in a way that isn't always obvious. It's less of a command and more of a hint.
> 
> Title and chapter title from Green Day's Last Night on Earth.

None of the other children seemed to be able to sit still, Number Five noticed. Well, none save Number Seven.

 

They had all filed into the room as quietly as possible. Sir Reginald Hargreeves expected obedience in all things, and there was no need to chit chat while obeying. Numerically, the Hargreeves children approached their father and was given a wide leather cuff to cover their right wrists. Then they took their seats and waited for midnight. The mood was quiet and anxious, despite Mom humming softly to herself as she picked at a piece of embroidery. 

 

Allison and Luther were sitting on opposite ends of the couch, but constantly sent darting, nervous glances at each other. Anxiously, Allison worried her lip between her teeth – just like she did on their way to a difficult mission. The entire left end of the couch bounced to the beat of Luther’s leg, despite his several attempts to still the movement that lasted for only seconds at a time. When he wasn’t looking at Allison, Luther was glancing warily at their father. Alternatively, Ben had not once looked at their father and kept his eyes on his shuffling sneakers. Next to him was Klaus, sitting close together and, with Ben, forming a barrier between the resident Romeo and Juliet. Klaus couldn’t seem to stop moving his hands, ruffling his hair and smoothing the shirt of his uniform and picking at his nails; occasionally, he nudged Ben and sent him a tentative smile. Diego stood apart from the others.  He hovered behind Mom, fingers playing with the cuff on his wrist. Mom patted his arm every once in a while, smiling softly as she kept her eyes on the needlepoint sunset. 

 

Number Seven sat alone in the chair opposite his. Her legs were curled beneath her, her hands folded submissively in her lap, her doleful eyes cast down. Further hiding her face were twin curtains of long, dark hair. She had looked at Five once from under her pretty hair, right as she sat down, and gave him the faintest hint of a smile. He had nodded a bit in return, carefully keeping his expression blank in front of their father. Father had resolutely shot down every attempt their siblings had made to bond with Vanya, one by one. Ben once invited their sister to study with them, only to be scolded about their differing courses and paths. Both Klaus and Allison tried to include her in conversations a few times; each try earned derisive comments from Father and scathing looks. Only Pogo and Mom shared private or kind moments with Number Seven. 

 

Number Five despised that exclusion. Was she not their family, extraordinary powers or no? They were born the same day, raised in the same house by the same man. He never understood the division and so, rebelled against it. By the age of ten, he had perfected spatial jumping small distances. It was easy, under the trusting eye of Pogo or Mom, to disappear for a few minutes. 

 

Over three years, he spent more and more time disappearing. To the point that their father became suspicious – if only of the missing minutes. As of yet, he hadn’t seemed to notice their hidden bond. 

 

Five had spent precious, secret moments wondering if everyone would know of it, after tonight. 

 

He had spent desperate, painful moments praying they wouldn’t. Who knows how Sir Reginald Hargreeves would take two of his adopted children being soulmates? 

 

Right now, he knew, Luther and Allison were having a very similar dilemma. They both watched their father nervously. He only had eyes for the pocket watch in his hand, standing perfectly still and firm in the middle of the room before them. After giving them their cuffs, meant to keep them from immediately reacting to their new soulmark, he hadn’t said anything but updates on the countdown to midnight. 

 

“Thirty seconds, children,” he barked. Then, at the murmur of shifting and whispers, “Quiet!  Not long now.” 

 

Five glanced down at his cuff, then stiffened and stared straight ahead. Right at Number Seven. He kept breathing as evenly as before. He blinked for a long moment. She lifted her eyes to his and he noticed how very brown they were. Vanya looked away. Number Five thought of rare moments spent sitting on her bed as she practiced the violin, of nights they would sneak out to the donut shop after he had trained so hard and perfected jumping with another person. The first time she had jumped with him, the exhilaration and her smile. It was so infrequent a sight – Seven seemed to spend most of her time in an expressionless daze. He relished being the one to change that blank look in her eyes. 

 

By the way he discouraged the barest interactions with Number Seven, Five doubted Reginald would approve of a friendship or anything else. 

 

Abruptly, their father said, “You may remove your cuffs. Be settled in your reactions.” 

 

Around him, he heard the explosion of noise In the previously silent room. His siblings were having their own individual crisis, while he was struggling to breath enough to manage his own. Five unclasped the cuff. It felt as though his lungs were collapsing as he uncovered his very own soulmark. 

 

He felt so young, so weighted, to know that he was meant to spend his life with someone. A violin, dark brown and beautiful, flashed through his mind in the moments before he saw the mark on his wrist. It wasn’t meant to be – he saw. In the amazing, crushing first glimpse at his soulmark, he was confused. It had no clear meaning to him. A large, elegant W was scripted on his wrist, split straight down the middle. Half of it was white, half of it was black. Number Five could not immediately think of anyone it could represent. 

 

Not that he knew too many people, besides his family. 

 

But there was a feeling welling up in him, springing straight from his feet to his chest like a geyser. It burned like disappointment, hurt like grief. Five clamped it down. If he was going to lose control of himself, it certainly wouldn’t be here. 

 

There are seven billion people on the planet. What were the chances it would be one of the few in his house? 

 

He raised his eyes, avoiding Number Seven. Allison was looking down at her wrist with a puzzled expression; Ben was stroking his new mark and smiling softly. Klaus grinned and opened his mouth, only to be interrupted by their father. 

 

“Children,” he started, and Pogo stepped forward, “come and let us examine your new marks.” 

 

Dutiful and red-faced, Luther stood immediately. He walked, hunched and sure footed, to the front of the room. Five craned his head to see a golden heart, etched with two letters, emblazoned on his wrist. A frown appeared on his father’s face. He made no comment – only dismissed Luther to the couch. Then came Diego, a soft gray rabbit foot on a silver chain marking his arm. He gave it wide-eyed looks and blushed, not even attempting to speak. Their father nodded. Diego returned to his post at Mom’s side and let her take his arm in hand with a dazed look. Mom whispered something to him and he grinned brightly, nodding. 

 

But then Allison approached silently, eyebrows still furrowed. Five looked between her and the pained look on Luther’s face. She gave Pogo her arm and they together examined the full moon painted on her skin. Some of the tightness left their father's face and he nodded. He wondered if that meant that she and Luther weren’t soulmates and knew they were both thinking exactly the same thing. 

 

Sauntering, Klaus let Pogo examine his oddly placed dog tags carefully. He chanted the numbers a few times, without mentioning a name. Their father ordered him to be quiet and returned him to his seat in a sullen mood. 

 

Then it was his turn. Number Five stood, rigidly. He didn’t know how to react to his soulmark, so he simply didn’t. His face was blank as he approached Pogo, baring his arm and looking down at it. 

 

He looked directly up at his father, waiting for a reaction. His eyes were hard but he only nodded like with the two others. Five continued breathing and made his way back to his seat. A wild part of him wondered if he was relieved Five and Vanya weren’t soulmates, though there was no known reason for him to worry about that. 

 

Ben presented a wreath of bright red and orange marigolds. His smile didn’t falter. Another nod from Father. 

 

Vanya didn’t move towards their father next as she should have. She sat silently staring at her arm, curtains of hair hiding her face. 

 

“Number Seven!” 

 

She did not move. Five leaned forward, just slightly. He desperately wanted to catch her eye. They all reacted when Father snapped any number, at any time. But this time, she was still frozen in place. 

 

Mom walked towards Vanya calmly, placing a gentle hand on her shoulder. Big, wet eyes raised to look at Mom. Number Seven jumped to her feet and made her way to their father and Pogo with short, sharp steps.  She kept her eyes focused on the wall behind them, thrusting her arm out to them with a carefully cold look on her face. He wondered what was wrong, what she had on her wrist to disturb her like that. 

 

Everyone in the room strained to look at her arm. She didn’t say a word and neither did their father. Her wrist was blank. Pogo move his hand from her arm and cupped it around hers for just a moment.  Seven’s lips tightened but her eyes never moved. 

 

With great effort, Five closed his eyes. He had never felt such heartbreak for someone else. He could only imagine how Vanya felt – no powers, no soulmate. She didn’t show emotion save for the rigidity in her posture. Pogo ever so gently lowered her sleeve and released her arm. 

 

“Of course,” their father said with an air of finality. Then, to the room, “You’re all dismissed. Off to bed.” 

 

*****

 

Five couldn’t sleep, kept fidgeting and turning under the suffocating blankets. He felt no better after throwing them off. For hours he had been wondering if Vanya was crying, if she was blaming herself, if she was angry. His chest felt compressed in any position he twisted – he needed to go check on Vanya. He had been thinking on it for hours. 

 

And for hours, he thought of a whispered comment from Allison, on the way to their rooms. 

 

_“Isn’t there like a one in a billion chance the mark didn’t show up on her wrist?”_  

 

Luther had hushed her, but Five's heart had pounded at those words. As soon as the doors were closed and the halls emptied, Five had jumped to the library. Gathering any book on soulmarks and soulmates that seemed to have a decent amount of information, he had returned to his bed and spent three hours searching for relevant material. While he hadn’t heard of a soulmark appearing anywhere but someone’s right wrist, it seemed possible. He had skimmed enough of the works he found to know it was exceptionally rare – only two dozen recorded cases in history. He had laid down afterwards, thinking on the chance. 

 

Number Seven could unknowingly have a soulmark blossoming on her shoulder or thigh or back. If anyone was special enough to have a one in a billion rarity, wouldn’t it be Vanya? Sweet, constant Vanya. She was wilted and sad under their father’s thumb, but came to startling life when alone with Number Five. He put a continuous, quiet effort into keeping her close. Not only with their secret meeting and mutual confidence in each other, but also by doing simplistic and kind things like including her among their siblings whenever he could get away with it. No one else brought as many smiles to Vanya’s face or pulled as many laughs from her lips. And he loved that, loved seeing her so happy and animated. 

 

He suspected that, soulmate or no, a part of him loved her for those stolen moments. 

 

And he needed to steal a few more, right now. Vanya needed him. 

 

He readied himself for the jump, small as it may be. The resizing and transporting of his body had become familiar, but never comfortable. Long distance jumps hurt, but a few rooms over just gave him a bit of a headache. Five forced himself into the space in Number Seven's tiny room, landing softly next to the door. Vanya was standing in front of her bed, her profile drowned in the moonlight from her single window. She looked so small, drowned beneath the weight of her hair and oversized pajamas. He wanted to reach out to her, pull her close. 

 

“Seven,” he said. 

 

She looked at him, confused but not too surprised. While he rarely appeared in her room, Five took care to make time for her when she was upset. As she must be, he thought. “Hello, Five.” 

 

He took a step forward. “I wanted to check on you.” 

 

“Five,” she said, and her tone was sweet, with a very sad smile to match, “how thoughtful of you.” 

 

“Are you…alright?” 

 

She sat on her bed, pale hands spread out on the dark blue sheets. It took her a minute to answer. “I’m very disappointed.” Her voice shook and he was drawn even closer. He ached to take away the pain in her voice, though he didn’t know how. Comforting had never been his strong suit. “Though, really, I shouldn’t be surprised. Father certainly wasn’t.” 

 

Five was struck by the bitterness in her voice, the resignation. She clenched her fists in the sheets and hunched forward. He moved closer again, tentatively. 

 

“I’m too boring to even have a soulmate,” she whispered. 

 

He was prepared to take a final step forward, to fall to his knees before her, but Seven stood abruptly and turned her back to Five. The sharp lines of her shoulders stood outside against the moonlight. 

 

“I’m going to go to bed now, Number Five. Thank you for checking on me,” Vanya whispered, detached and demure. It was a dismissal that she made even clearer by gathering her hair to braid for the night. She swept it off her neck and over one shoulder in one smooth motion, exposing the pale skin beneath. 

 

Five felt light headed – standing a foot away, witnessing what nearly amounted to a miracle. He was right. Vanya was one in a billion. 

 

His heart pounded as he moved the smallest bit closer, a burning need to see it and  _know_. Five did not register reaching out and grabbing Vanya's shoulders. He hardly noticed pulling her closer until he was inches from her neck reading her very own soulmark. A gold watch, hands pointing at the only two numbers on the large face. The numbers were handsome Roman Numerals in bold black print. Her soulmark read 5’oclock. 

 

“Five!” she scolded, hands abandoning her half-formed braid. 

 

He couldn’t hear her – couldn’t focus on anything but that clock. Before she could twist around or move out of his reach, he slid one hand from her shoulder to the nape of her neck. His world had shrunk down to that small image; his mind had cleared, empty of his usual anxieties and analyzing. Number Seven’s soulmark, _his_ mark on her, was the center of his attention.  Five brushed his thumb across the mark reverently.  That was  _him. He_ was Vanya’s soulmate.

 

Vanya jumped as though she had been shocked and whirled around. There was a furious snarl on her face, one hand grasping at the back on the neck and the other outstretched so she could shove him. 

 

He stumbled and she hissed at him, “What in the world is wrong with you, Five? Leave me the hell alone!” 

 

Any other time, Five would have been shocked at her reaction. Seven rarely ever lost her temper, and never with him. While most of their siblings – himself at the forefront – had mouths reminiscent to a sailor’s, Vanya was one of the few who hardly cursed. Violence and profanity in one day were unheard of from her. But he couldn’t focus on her anger. The only thing he could feel was a primitive rush of euphoria; it ignited in his veins and shaped his face into a ridiculous grin. He tried to move towards her again. 

 

“Vanya, you don’t understand,” he started. 

 

“No!” She shoved him back again and he stumbled, sobering a bit. “I don’t understand! Why don’t you just get out of here?” 

 

Closing his eyes briefly, Five took a deep breath. He tried to calm his tone, whispered, “Seven... Vanya. I’m sorry.” The apology sat between them.  He watched as her shoulders dropped just a fraction of an inch and she nodded. “Do you trust me?” 

 

Her eyes narrowed; her cheeks were flushed and her eyebrows drawn. The defiance hadn’t left her posture, but she didn’t seem to be angry. “When you aren’t acting like a lunatic.” 

 

Five chuckled, self-consciously. “I’m sorry. If you give me a minute, you’ll understand.” He held out his hand and tried to keep every frantic thought assaulting his mind off his face. She simply _had_ to listen to him. Vanya sighed, face softening as she slid her had into his. 

 

*****

 

He had to shush her questions about jumping to the bathroom on the main floor, where Allison kept her collection of hand and compact mirrors. Seven was curious and vocal when riled up.  Five smirked fondly at her irritation. 

 

The room was flooded with light, much better lit than most of the dreary old house. Vanya grumbled but did as he instructed when Five told her to pull her hair up. She twisted it all up at the top of her head in her hurry, scowling at his affectionate grin. Five put one hand on her arm and the other on her hip, walking her back against the counter for the best look. Sternly keeping himself at arm's length, he steadied himself and passed Seven the biggest handheld mirror Allison owned. 

 

His hands shook as he gave her the mirror. Seven was curious and quiet, watching him with a careful wariness. They were the closest to each other of all their siblings – more familiar with each other than Allison and Luther, though less obvious. Surely, she was reading his every emotion. With the reminder of their brother and sister, there was a part of him not celebrating, too busy clenched in fear at the ramifications of their fate.  But even that was buried under the secret terror that she could reject him. Vanya could refuse to believe they were soulmates, grow angry and upset with him for suggesting it. He tried to force those fears away because this was Seven. No one in the world knew him like she did. And he knew long ago he cared for Seven in a different way, a way that made keeping his closeness to her a secret that much harder. She was the one to calm his mind, erase worries and equations and anger. No one understood him like she did. Five was sure she could sense his excitement and fear. The W on his wrist still left him a little puzzled, but there was no denying the clock. He would tell her, and she would be overjoyed. After that, who knew? 

 

“Vanya. Look at the back of your neck.” 

 

She pulled the mirror up to see and he just kept talking, information pouring out his mouth in a nervous stream. “Apparently, there is an incredibly small chance for a soulmark to appear somewhere other than the right wrist. One study noted the only difference in these  _misplaced marks_ ,” he said and mentally cringed at the finger quotation marks he added, "are the strength of the bond they represent. I did as much reading as I could earlier; they say it’ll be an exceptionally strong bond and ensures that the couple-“ 

 

The whole time Five had been rambling, Vanya was gaping open-mouthed but silent at the mark on her neck. She stretched a hand out to gingerly brush it with her fingertips. She didn’t take in any of the information he was still spewing. 

 

“-will experience heightened side effects of a regular soulmark. There are theories that-” 

 

Vanya let the mirror drop to the floor, cushioned by the bright pink bath mat Allison picked out months ago. Five shut his mouth and watched it drop. Her eyes were wet and wide, taking the breath from his chest as she stepped towards him. 

 

She flung her arms around him and drew in a deep, shuddering breath, kick-starting his own. Arms twining around Seven, he took several quick gulps of air and attempted to compose himself. Vanya buried her face in his neck, her fingers dug into the back of his shirt. Five rested his head atop hers. A small part of him wished he could see her soulmark from this angle – but he wouldn’t move until she did. They were rarely physical with one another. Only Diego and Mom seemed to be tactile people, but with Vanya in his arms it wasn’t hard to see why they were. 

 

After a silent, perfect pause, she shifted. Five gave her room to put her head on his shoulder, her hands still keeping him close. 

 

“I do have a soulmate.” 

 

Five tensed at this, her tone wistful and pleased and her sentence short and sweet. Before his anxiety grew by leaps and bounds, she said, “And you’re the only one I ever wanted.” 

 

And Five – thirteen, a math whiz who took down petty robbers and organized criminals, a boy and a weapon – felt relief. There was no other path in life he would have chosen, no other person to mark him than Vanya. She was the only thing he held dear. Vanya, with her beautiful music and shy smiles. Five finally felt as though he could breathe properly again. Fate itself said they were meant for each other and no one could ever take that away from them. Even in the eye of the law, soulmates had a stronger bond than marriage and family ties. Soulmarks were given by something stronger and more eternal than humans – be it a god playing matchmaker or a scientific equation for the best breeding. 

 

Number Seven froze all of that with the motion of pulling away, her hands still frozen in his shirt but her body apart from his own. He relaxed a little at the small smile on her face. Seven released her grip on his back and pulled his right wrist into her hands. Vanya brushing her fingers over his own mark caused him to shudder. Her touched inspired a heat in his chest, blooming and burning pleasantly even as it made his heart pound. “I guess your mark makes a little more sense now. I spent hours early cursing every name I could think of that started with a W, when it’s not even a W.” 

 

He looked down at it, confused. Her fingers played against the dual colors, tracing the black half and then the white. And saw what she was seeing – two V’s opposite but locked together. A V for Vanya and a V for Five, like her timepiece. His eyes burned at the epiphany, all his doubts and fears evaporated by her statement. He had been worried over his own mark even as he knew that hers meant they were soulmates. 

 

“Thank God,” he drawled. “Can you imagine me on the arm of a Whitney or a Wilma?” She laughed, bright and dazzling. “Fuck that. I’d much rather be seen in the company of a beautiful girl named Vanya.” 

 

And she blushed prettily, liked he had hoped she would, for just a moment. Then she sobered. She looked away from him and tried to say, “I don’t think... We can’t tell anyone, Five. We can’t tell Father.” The lights in the bathroom seemed harsher as he looked into her panicked, half-hidden face in shock. 

 

Immediately, Five wanted to rage. What was Sir Reginald Hargreeves compared to this new truth? He may have adopted them, but that was all. He brought them together, but that was all. He was no father to them – rarely speaking to any child of his outside of training or scolding. Never a kind word or expression, merely more expectations and criticisms. Seven was the one that cared for Five, his well-being and mental state. After bloody, dark missions it was not Reginald that kept the nightmares at bay or checked him for wounds. He belonged to her, and no other. 

 

Her hands untangled from his shirt and he was already tightening his grip on her so she wouldn’t let go. Instead, Vanya raised her hands to his face and her eyes to his own. Her thumbs smoothed over the tense lines between his brow before she placed her hands on either side of his face. Throat tightening painfully, Five looked down at her. 

 

“Seven, why would you want to hide this? He’s not going to give one of us up. Hell, he paid for us.” 

 

Rolling her eyes, Seven said, “He paid for seven special children. He got six.” 

 

“He got seven, because you don’t need powers to be special. How many times do I have to tell you that?” 

 

She sighed, her fingers tensing against his cheeks. Her eyes searched his face, thought he wasn’t sure why, and she sighed again after not finding what she wanted. “Father would send me away. He has already threatened to, after he heard Allison ask Mom if we could have a sleep over. He pulled me into his study and told me that I was in no way to be a distraction or irritation to the Umbrella Academy, and if it ever looked like I had become such, he would send me to a boarding school. Until I’m eighteen.” 

 

“When did he say that? Why didn’t you tell me?” 

 

“Two years ago.” 

 

Shocked, Five recoiled. Her hands slipped from his face and he ached for the lost contact, but he couldn’t believe she had kept this from him. A vulnerable part of him wanted to wrap his arms around himself instead, missing her warmth and needing to anchor himself. Five merely clenched them into fists at his side instead. He would have been much more careful. Five thought of the times he had caught Seven’s eye during meals and lessons, sending her a look or a grin; he remembered impatiently jumping home from Umbrella Academy outings, spending the sparse minutes he had before their family returned to tease Vanya or listen to her play. There were so many times they could have been caught. 

 

And Father forced Five to take his training more seriously than all but Klaus, who had been become resistant and fearful of his powers early on. Hours and hours spent pouring over scientific essays on spatial jumping and time travel, weeks spent working on one single equation to fit in the puzzle of math required to figure it out, days spent pushing himself to jump quicker, more frequently, and further. None of the others put half as much time or effort into their studies, as most of them had more straightforward powers. Luther didn’t need to study physiology or anatomy to toss cars around; Ben simply had to have room and pain tolerance. Even Allison only required a basic sense of cunning and understanding of the domino effect to use her powers. Had it appeared that Seven was distracting Five, Reginald would have removed her in an instant. 

 

Vanya was right. 

 

Anger flooded Five at the thought that even now, even with physical proof of their bond, they would have to appear cold to one another. But he would do it, despite a primal part of him wanting to yell it from the rooftops and rub it right in Sir Reginald’s face. Vanya was his and he was hers and the whole damn world should know. 

 

He thought rationally though, thought of keeping her close down the hall and not halfway around the world in a depressing imitation of Hogwarts. He thought, if he could spend three years pretending then surely he could spend five doing the same – as long as Vanya was with him. 

 

“Okay, Vanya. We won’t tell anyone.” 

 

Five jumped them back to her room. He closed the curtain, hiding them from even the rising sun. Seven took his hand and pulled him to her bed, where they wrapped themselves around each other and planned for the next very long five years of their lives. She would have to keep her hair long and down, never chancing a glimpse of her soulmark. He would keep his head down among their siblings, neither starting trouble or taking too active of a role in missions. Seven pointed out he would need to seem wistful or even actively search for his soulmate, but Five refused. 

 

“I won’t pretend to look for some imaginary love of my life when she is right here,” he scoffed, and rushed on to ignore the weight of his words. “I’ll tell them that I am content knowing I have someone out there, that I will find them when we are ready. I have a lot to work on until then anyway. We’re only thirteen, I haven’t mastered half of my powers, and there's so much more to learn. Soulmates can wait.” 

 

Vanya giggled and turned her face against him, using his shoulder to muffle the sounds. “That does sound exactly like what you’d say.” 

 

“Then they’ll believe me. I won’t tell them it’s you, but I’m not looking for fake candidates.” 

 

“Whatever you wish,” Seven said, yawning. “You know all those magazines and celebrity-stalking news shows will be looking for you, anyway."

 

He rolled his eyes at the reminder, the recent publicity of the Umbrella Academy having been a source of annoyance for him. Reginald had already mentioned several different calls from news outlets and gossip mags asking for exclusive coverage of the Academy’s upcoming soulmark revelations. Allison was the only one of their team comfortable in the spotlight. 

 

“I’ll have to pretend to be upset, for a while at least, over not having a mark.” 

 

“Allison will likely tell you to look everywhere. She’s the one who gave me the idea.” 

 

“I guess I’ll brush it off, tell her I have, act angry that no miracle happened.” 

 

Five pulled her closer, hating every second that passed and caused the room to grow lighter. Their time was running out. “Will it be hard to act?” 

 

“We’ve been acting for three years, Five. Now we just have a reason to be more careful.” 

 

She shook against him, fear and anxiety and exhaustion radiating off of them both in waves. Five pressed his lips to her forehead and closed his eyes. There was no reason to be so scared. They were together. Seven stilled and sighed softly. He tried to calm himself and enjoy simply being with her. They could get through this. There was a guarantee now, a truth they had only guessed at before. Neither of them belonged anywhere else in the world. 

 

“We’re together. Even if Father was the bridge that closed the gap, we’re together and no one will take you away from me.” 

 

Number Seven placed a hand over his heart. It felt like her hand had always been there, keeping him steady and solid. Like without her there, he would have lost himself to the pressures and aggression of his training. Five put his hand over her own and they waited for the sun to rise until they moved. He jumped back to his own bed, leaving her with his honeyed promises of the perfect future and his bloody, beating heart in her hands. 


	2. I walked for miles til I found you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Five is annoyed with time itself, and also his father's refusal to let him travel it. Soulmates are a heavy and heady thing to handle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter two! There's some details and talk about the effects of Five's powers - this is all speculation based on the show and some discussion with a friend. I'm no doctor or space/time expert. Also, while I'm inclined to agree with Aiden Gallagher's Twitter explanation of the Five/Vanya ship, some people aren't - so I've added the Pseudo-incest tag. Thanks so much for all the sweet things you've said so far! The feedback definitely fueled the quick update. ❤️
> 
> Also! A bit of a time skip, but it's worked in there a couple times to remind y'all.
> 
> Chapter title again from Green Day.

Five closed his eyes and braced himself for the jump, the suction and readjusting and stretching of the spatial travel hurting for the smallest of milliseconds. He reappeared beside Allison and yanked her out the way of the oncoming explosion of debris from Luther and his opponent bursting through the wall. With his arms wrapped around his sister, he jumped them both to the safety outside the building and let Allison stumble out of his grasp. A migraine was pounding behind his eyes already and he had been struggling to breathe for the last fifteen minutes. Klaus came rushing towards them In a new burst of noise. He was asking questions and checking Allison over for injuries – looking at them both with saucer-sized, unfocused eyes. When he made to grab at Five, he jerked his arm from Klaus’s grasp and shoved him back towards their sister. Cursing, he ignored his siblings’ combined protests and jumped back into the fray.

 

Diego and Ben had already dispatched half of the members of whatever gang or organization they were fighting. Father hadn’t given much detail, rustling them out of bed in the early hours of the morning and telling them there was a team of art thieves to stop in the next town over. On the drive to the targeted shipping warehouse, the children knew better than to grill their father for information or extra details – he told them what they needed to know, and that was all.

 

Or so he said.

 

But in the middle of a warehouse full of ancient and/or priceless statues fighting men in all black uniforms with automatic weapons, Five damned Hargreeves to Hell for his lack of communication.

 

Luther was tackling two of the five remaining men, easily strong enough to take them down. Off to the left, Ben was slumped over against one of the outer walls, breathing hard with his head between his knees. He had likely just taken out half or more of the men that had been in here before Five had to transport Allison out. Diego crouched in front of their brother, aiming a blade for the nearest criminal. There was debris and bodies littering the ground, but Five wouldn’t have to jump over anything to get where he was going.

 

In the blink of an eye, Five was across the room and safe from the whistling bullets aimed for his previous position. He ignored the spike of adrenaline at a risk well avoided. Snarling, he jumped again and landed on the back of the idiot shooting at him. Five's lungs were on fire as he yanked the gun out of the other man's hand, smashing the butt into his assailant’s face a quick _one-two-three_ times before they were tumbling into a stack of wooden crates and then to the ground. Pain shot up his side at the fall. It flared and faded, leaving him panting hard as he scrambled to his feet, abandoned the gun, and aimed a kick under the guy’s chin. At the kick, his head snapped back, black ski mask askew and bloody. He didn’t move again. Pushing himself for another jump, Five appeared right in front of the last lone criminal. His head was pounding like hell and his hands were starting to go numb; this needed to be over fast. The guy in front of him tried to lift and aim his gun, predictably. Five stopped his gun in its tracks, grabbing him at the wrist, and used his other arm to aim a punch at his kidney. Grunting and trying to twist away, his opponent became easy prey. Five landed a punch to his throat with his nearly dead fist; he grabbed the gun away from the masked man and let it drop. One more time, he pushed himself to jump, standing on a crate behind his opponent. Lightning fast, Five snapped the man’s neck and watched him hit the ground.

 

This time, the criminal went down alone.

 

“Fuck,” Five grunted and grabbed his ribs, making himself assess the rest of the room. Luther was carrying Ben out of the warehouse, the two men he had tangled with in a heap atop the rest of the men beaten by inhuman strength today. Their other two brothers were by the door, Diego chattering to an officer and Klaus sneaking off to smoke the joint behind his ear. No other opponents seemed to be standing. A gaping hole filtered sunlight through a few of the interior walls of the building. Only one of the rows of jade, marble, wooden, and metal statues had been disturbed, leaving two busts and a full-figured maiden on the ground. The chief of police would allow the museum to bill Hargreeves for that, surely. It would have been a comfort had Five not known that their father cared nothing for the seemingly limitless amount of money he possessed.

 

Trudging along behind Luther, Five resolutely ignored each officer or reporter vying for his attention. He was more focused on bringing the feeling back to his hands and feet and keeping his breathing even. Their yelled questions and intrusions – _How does it feel to be a fourteen-year-old superhero? Sir, I need to take your statement on the altercation inside! Were any Umbrella Academy members injured? How does it feel to be a fourteen-year-old killer?_ – were merely background noise to him at this point.

 

He marched right up to their father’s car, waited for Pogo and Sir Reginald to step out of the vehicle, and began giving his report as soon as they had.

 

“Twenty-three criminals present upon entry – all taking steps to begin moving the artwork inside. Twelve trucks parked out back, primed to transport the statues. All of the trucks have had their breaks cut so no one would be making a quick getaway; that was done by Number Four. Number Three convinced the men by the trucks to leave the art alone, while Numbers One, Two, Five, and Six all started taking down the men inside. Numbers Three and Four remained outside, watching for any escapees after Number Three rumored the men watching the trucks into being tied up. None were seen escaping; Number Three rushed inside to join the fight but I returned her when it became too dangerous. No injuries were sustained apart from Number Six’s usual fatigue.”

 

He didn’t mention that Reginald had warned them of one dozen men, not nearly two. He didn’t mention the fractured rib he was likely sporting. He didn’t mention that Ben’s fatigue could be avoided if he wasn’t pushed to be their heavy hitter every single mission. He just wanted to go home, to listen to Vanya play for just a minute, to shower the dirt and debris and death off of his body.

 

The rest of his siblings had gathered around by the time he finished. Each would individually report to their father, but Five was usually the first and most accurate.

 

“Very well, Number Five.” That was all.

 

Allison stepped forward next, at the allowing bow of Luther’s head. He was jumping home – and it hurt, the distance and the previous jumps weighing on him – before she even opened her mouth.

 

*****

 

Before he even landed, Five knew he was at his limits. One more jump – even just across the room – would leave him gasping for breath and numb all over. It wouldn’t be as precise; he’s landed several feet to the wrong side, and once, in the right spot but on the wrong floor of the house. A jump after that would be wildly off aim, leaving him barely conscious with an unbearable migraine and a gushing nosebleed, too numb to stand. He’s always imagined that if he could force himself to jump one more time after that, he’d die. Maybe from the pressure – collapsing organs and hemorrhaging his brain – or maybe from a failed jump. Would he leave behind an arm or a leg? Would he appear in the right spot, a contorted and bloody mess? Would he just...disappear?

 

Fuck, he came back melancholy from some of these missions.

 

He flexed his fingers and toes, willing the feeling back into them more than getting actual results from the action. The parlor was deserted, no telltale humming to let him know Mom was sitting in her little alcove of views. On the search for life continued.

 

Finally, he found Mom was sitting on the couch in the den with her hands folded in her lap, gaze focused straight ahead. The large house was still silent; it always seemed to be holding its breath until the rest of the family came home and they all collectively held their breath inside. Only Mom was immune to the tension in the house – programmed to be warm and welcoming at any time. She brightened when he stepped into the room, unfolding herself from the couch with a dazzling smile. He appreciated Mom, cared about her to an extent. She was the only kind thing he encountered some days. But he didn’t love her, not like Diego loved her wholeheartedly or even how Ben loved her in his quieter way. And he certainly didn’t love Mom like he loved Vanya.

 

Now, where was Vanya?

 

“Five,” Mom said, “it's so good to see you’ve returned from the mission looking well. How are the rest of your siblings?” Her hands were clasped in front of her stomach politely, though oddly white-knuckled. The dazzling smile had dimmed into something more strained.

 

“Everyone was fine, Mom. They’ll be home shortly.” He paused, chest tight, debating. There was always a chance that asking Mom about Vanya would lead to Father knowing he was asking about Vanya, which would only make him suspicious and paranoid about-

 

“Oh, wonderful,” Mom said brightly, interrupting his fraying thoughts. “I’ll just go make Vanya her afternoon snack. She’s been practicing for hours, since you all left this morning. Would you like anything to eat, Five, dear?”

 

“No, but cup of tea would be nice, please, Mom,” he said.

 

She approached him with her soft, kind eyes and motherly smile. Laying a hand on his cheek briefly, she nodded and made her way down to the kitchen. Once Mom was gone, Five closed his eyes and steadied himself. His head was splitting and he only wanted to find Vanya. She was always tense and snappish waiting for the Umbrella Academy to return from a mission, quiet and clingy when he came home. It warmed his heart in a strange, possessive way to see the reaction that being away from her caused. But it was a two-way street – he grew just as irritable and worried when they were separated.

 

He trudged up the stairs and hoped Mom telling him where Vanya would be was purely coincidence.

 

No music came from her bedroom. He wondered if she had grown annoyed with her own playing, or if her hands were cramping again, or if she had simply been too consumed with waiting to continue practicing. Every step of the way he wished he could run, wished he could have simply used his powers to get there. The pain in his ribs had returned and multiplied without the numbing effects of adrenaline and near-death experiences. Maybe he should have asked Mom for an ice pack, too.

 

The door was closed. He knocked, short and sharp. Vanya pulled the door open apathetically, most likely expecting Mom to be on the other side. Five felt smug as her initial shock faded into elation at seeing him, instead. He grabbed her hand before she could surge forward and embrace him – which Seven had been seconds from doing. The pain in his side and his head was enough without the light tackle she would have preferred to give him. He took a step towards her, backing her into the room. Needing no other invitation, she tugged him inside. The door closed behind them and Five finally felt like he was home.

 

“Everyone is okay. Ben will need to sleep it off and I took a hit to my ribs.”

 

“Five,” Number Seven hissed, clenching his hand tightly and shuffling closer.

 

“Its not too bad,” he soothed. “I’ll just have a few bruises for a couple of days. Maybe even get to lay off training a bit.”

 

Vanya groaned, “Now I know you’re lying.”

 

Five snorted, shaking his head at how well she knew him. “Fuck, okay, it may be fractured.”

 

Seven was moving into action, shaking her head and easing his jacket off his shoulders gently. Five sighed and tried not to irritate his ribs as he complied. The jacket slipped off; Vanya folded it in half and lay it on the bed. She took a moment to rummage around her desk, pulling out a first aid kit before coming back to remove his mask. Five caught her hand as it was near his temple, placing it on his cheek and molding his own hand around hers. He looked down at her, if only by the few inches he had grown in the last year, and smiled.

 

“Thank you, Vanya.”

 

She frowned back, eyebrows pinched together. “For what, Five?”

 

“Waiting up for me.”

 

“It’s three-thirty in the afternoon, Five.”

 

Five rolled his eyes and tried again. Glancing away from her inquisitive brown eyes, he said, “Thank you for being here. When I get back.” Instead of allowing her to see how his face grew red, Five dipped down and placed a kiss on her forehead. His heart ached with his fumbled attempts at expressing himself.

 

But Vanya just pulled away from him with a soft smile. She gave him his domino mask to hold and he wrapped his fingers around it tightly, pleased to have her attention and care. Her hands moved to his tie. Five watched the way her eyes lowered, lashes fanning her cheeks as she focused on untying the knot before her. With pride, he noted her flushed cheeks and the little tremor in her hands. It felt good to see physical evidence his soulmate was affected by him, he thought, as though it meant he was doing something right. Seven avoided his eyes right up until she snaked the tie from beneath his collar. Her shy grin as she pulled the mask from his hands and the tie from his shirt made his heart pound.

 

The mask and tie were then laid out next to the jacket and Seven started on his shirt buttons. There was a moment he wondered if he should give a token protest. While he certainly didn’t mind her touch – when he felt it so rarely to begin with – he did not want to make her feel obligated to help him anymore than she had. But her thumb brushed over his collar bone so sweetly, and she frowned in the cutest way when she saw the bruises forming on his shoulder. So he stayed quiet as she worked her way down the line of buttons. Vanya stepped behind him to help remove the shirt.

 

It was also folded and sat on the bed, neatly stacked atop his jacket.

 

Seven's eyes went wide as soon as she turned back around, first aid kit in hand, and saw his bruised side. A mottled mass of blues, greens, and blacks – it didn’t present the best picture. There was a gash above the aching ribs, likely from one of the crates he’d fallen into. Her hands immediately reached for him, one full and one empty, halting halfway and shaking. He didn’t look away from them. He knew her eyes would be getting wet, her nose red as she was so furious and saddened by the sight before her. It was the same every time he came home injured, every time she had to sit back while he went out at their father’s beck and call.

 

Five fought with himself, wanting to reach out and comfort her. He struggled to keep breathing under the pain from his ribs and the emotion blanketing the room. This wasn’t exactly new to them; in the past year, she had cleaned him up after nearly every mission. Maybe this time felt so different because of the unexpected level of danger of his mission, or because it had been the first time he fractured a bone outside the relative control of training. Maybe it always felt like this for her – maybe Five was just now seeing the severity he had missed because of how purely _exhausted_ he was.

 

They wasted their time in this silence, this pressure, until it was broken by Mom opening the door. Vanya’s hands jerked back, pressing the box of Band-Aids and ointments to her chest. Mom didn’t bat an eye, smiling and shutting the door behind her. She deposited a tray piled high with tea cups and sandwiches on the desk.

 

Her smiled vanished when she inspected Five, eyes calculating and brows furrowed. “I don’t think the kit will be enough for this, Vanya, darling. I’m afraid Five will need to come downstairs for an X-RAY.”

 

Seven blinked hard a couple of times, looking at Mom with some hesitation. “Okay, Mom. Thanks for the tea.”

 

Mom's face morphed back into her dazzling smile at Vanya's thanks, and she said, “It was nothing. Enjoy them, and don’t forget you have a mathematics lesson after dinner.”

 

“Okay, Mom.”

 

“Gather your things and come downstairs, Five. Quickly now, your siblings will be home soon.”

 

Hands clasped together, Mom turned towards the door. The second she was out of the room, Five wrapped a hand around the back of Vanya’s neck and brought his lips to her forehead. Her free hand wrapped around his wrist; her palm burned hot against his soulmark. He knew that they should talk about this – about her worry, their father's endangerment and neglect, his recklessness, their tentative not-a-relationship. But Father was on the way home. There was no time.

 

“I’ll see you at dinner, Seven.”

 

Five left his clothes, stamping down the stairs as angrily as his body allowed. He could _make_ time. Father insisted he wait, holding him back. Vanya was against it because she worried so much, but he knew he could do it. The math was nearly right; it wouldn’t be long now.

 

*****

 

Dinner was the usual tense affair. The baked chicken, steamed broccoli, wheat rolls, and mashed potatoes Mom served was as delicious as a fairly bland, healthy diet could be. Sir Reginald sat at the head of the table in his precise silence. He paid the children no mind so long as they made no disturbance.

 

Five watched their father throughout dinner, grinding his teeth and cursing his three ( _three!_ ) fractured ribs. The X-RAYs showed them to be fairly even, with no danger of breaking and puncturing a lung or anything dramatic. They were a piercing pain with every breath he took before the pills Mom had administered him kicked in. But the pain meds left him a bit foggy. He was simmering with anger and still so damn tired. It would be another few hours before he was allowed to rest, though he wished he could have curled up in Vanya’s bed the moment he returned. She could practice the violin; he would sleep, dreamless and safe in her presence.

 

Five occasionally broke his focus on Father to study his other siblings. Vanya had been the one he first sought out, as soon as he made his way towards the dining room. She stood waiting in line as the others arranged themselves in front of her. There was no trace of the earlier upset, the affection she so freely gave him, the tears she didn’t quite shed. Pride and worry mixed swirled around his stomach. It was best to keep it all hidden, too much of it being tangled up in their secrets, but Five worried about her keeping everything bottled up.

 

Glancing around at his siblings, he could clearly see the damage that improperly handling one's problems could cause.

 

Only Ben was absent from dinner. If he hadn’t seen the horrors of Ben's power first hand, Five would have envied him the chance to skip a meal and rest. But he would take six fractured ribs over the pain his brother went through.

 

Luther and Allison were the ideal, dutiful children. Neither said a word for the entire meal – though Luther sent many a scalding look to the other four if they dared utter a noise. The one time he had spoken during the meal, just a muttered thank you after Seven passed him the rolls, Luther had sent such a look his way that Five hadn’t even paused in buttering his roll to flip him off. Klaus smothered a laugh with his hand; he also used the motion to pop three bright blue pills into his mouth and swallow them. Fifteen minutes later, even he had stopped making noise.

 

Mostly because he looked too high to blink, let alone speak.

 

Diego was silent for most of the meal. He spent the first half wolfing down his food and the second glancing at the door every few seconds. Like Luther, he bounced his leg when impatient. Five wondered what he was up to – but, in the end, had many more important things to be worrying about.

 

When their father dismissed them from dinner and disappeared into his study, the children all seemed to ease the tension in their shoulders marginally. Seven went straight to her mathematics lesson with Mom, while he and the others dutifully followed Pogo to the library for their own lessons. Tonight, they would be covering strategy and stealth. Five wished he was studying the back of his eyelids, most of the class spent in half-drugged daze. The margins of his notes held more detailed and concentrated material than his actual assigned work. He folded them up and stowed them away. Maybe the math would make sense in the morning.

 

Managing to stay conscious for the lessons was a feat. Not only were they boring, and mostly could be covered by a class called _Common Sense_ , but his head was beginning to ache again. He briefly debated asking Klaus for a joint. His brother wouldn’t come off one easy, though, and he didn’t have the energy to barter.

 

He crawled into bed at eight sharp. Once his head hit the pillow, he was lost to the haze of pain killers and exhaustion.

 

*****

 

Five woke up to a thunderstorm thrashing against the windows, shaking the trees and pulling him from sleep with booming thunder. For an instant, his room was illuminated with a white flash of lightning. He hadn’t recalled Mom warning them about the storm before bed. Strange.

 

It was stranger still that a storm had woken Five up at all. The noise usually didn’t bother him, nor did he fear the weather. He waited for his brain to clear the fog of sleep away and tried to figure out what had woken him up.

 

The room was empty, silent save the noise from outside. There were no feet standing before his door. He couldn’t hear anyone in the hallway. Briefly, he thought about jumping out there to see if anything was amiss – but the house's security was well-maintained and anyone breaking in was more likely to get lost than find their target. Nothing should have woken him up. Determining he was as safe as ever, Five resolved to go back to sleep.

 

He closed his eyes and let his mind drift. The rain was soothing background noise, when the thunder wasn’t shaking the house. It was dark and quiet, the storm blocking out any moonlight that may have come into the room, and he wished he were with Seven. She frequently tried to leave the light on in the hallway for him when they were kids, knowing that the dark was the one thing that made Five feel small. Reginald wouldn’t hear of it, even boarded up Number Seven's window when he thought she was the one afraid. The dark never scared Vanya. Nothing but Reginald ever scared Vanya.

 

No one was around. The door was locked. Five buried himself under a mountain of blankets and cradled his right arm to his body, hiding the mark from even himself. He wished it were Vanya here, holding onto him and bringing her fingers to brush across the soulmark she had left on him.

 

He glanced down at it in the darkness. Five furrowed his brow and blinked hard.

 

The white half of his mark glowed softly, a faint light in the pitch black of his room.


	3. I wanna scream "I love you" from the top of my lungs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More questions than answers plague Five, while the Hargreeves children enjoy a little break.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from Fall Out Boy.

The rest of the night was sleepless and long. He wanted to jump to the library, find out what the hell was going on – but not a single one of the books he borrowed before ever mentioned a _glowing_ soulmark. They all said the same universally known facts about the marks with a few vague comments about misplaced marks. Five tried to wrack his brain for anything he had missed. Soulmarks appeared at the age of thirteen on nearly everyone. A rare few were born without a mark entirely – something like one of every couple hundred thousand people last he had read. Misplaced marks were nearly unheard of. But glowing? That was _completely_ unheard of.

 

Maybe, Five thought, just maybe it had something to do with the exceptional strength of the bond Vanya’s misplaced mark gave them. He hadn’t noticed any weird side effects of the supposedly super-strong bond before. The one book in their library that detailed the effects of the bond was vague at best; it mentioned shared emotions, slight lie detection, and a sense of near intuition between the pair. He had never felt any sort of extreme emotions that seemed out of place.

 

Then again, he imagined Vanya never felt out of control emotions to begin with, considering the way their father kept her numbed down. He would put money on being the one person in their house that had seen a full spectrum of emotions from her. Alone, she would come to life. In front of the rest of their family, the rest of the world, Seven was dulled down and dazed. She would show annoyance, laugh a bit, get impatient. But rage, joy, sorrow...

 

When Vanya saw her mark for the first time – that was some of the strongest emotion Five had seen from her. Her joy hadn’t outshined his own, but it was much more intense than the small smiles or tiny laughs that she would usually give people.

 

He debated, next, jumping to Seven’s room. Was her mark reacting? It was unlikely she would be able to see it even so. And he certainly didn’t want to wake at her whatever time in the morning it was just to ask questions he couldn't fully explain.

 

So, he lay awake, waiting for the room to lighten and a chance to make sense of the mystery lighting up his wrist.

 

*****

 

The sun rose slowly, coming to life in shades and inches. His mind hadn’t stopped whirring since this new development came to life. None of his ideas or theories had panned out further. He was lost. As the sky turned from a dusky purple to the pinks and reds of morning, he crawled fully beneath his blankets to see if the mark was still acting strangely. Nothing pierced the darkness this time.

 

Five waited until the sun had crept high enough to brighten his room before dressing for the day. His ribs ached fiercely and just putting on his shirt was enough to leave him wincing and breathing hard. The sweater vest and jacket were equally difficult. By the time he was straightening his tie, he already felt drained. The pain of bending to tie his shoes left him unable to do so. He glared down at his feet, nostrils flaring in irritation at the simple task that hurt too much to accomplish. Putting on his socks had been difficult but required a less painful angle to achieve.

 

“Son of a bitch,” he muttered.

 

It was unlikely any of his other siblings were awake. If any of them were, it was probably Diego and he would already be downstairs in the kitchen with Mom. Five sighed, rolled his eyes, and headed that way. Breakfast was his destination – laces tied or untied.

 

He carefully made his way down the stairs with unlaced shoes, seeing no sign of life. Pogo wasn’t moving about the common areas or hallways; Father was likely locked away in his study developing their training schedules for the week. Pale sunlight filtered through the windows, illuminating the parts of the giant house that could be reached. Five carefully ignored the shadows and swaths of darkness clinging to the corners. No one would be – or _should be_ at any rate – creeping just out of sight. None of his siblings could successfully sneak up on him, anyway.

 

There was a soft, familiar humming coming from the kitchen. Five walked in, dreaming of pain pills and sausage for breakfast, unsurprised to see Diego was already sitting at the table. Mom was standing in front of the stove. Platters piled high with Belgian waffles, bacon, and sausage links decorated the table already. Taking his usual seat, he took note that the clock only read 5:58. It would be an hour before the last of his siblings (most likely Klaus) came down the stairs for breakfast. Five situated himself before giving his only present brother a perfunctory nod in greeting.

 

“Good m-m-morning, Five,” Diego mumbled in return, barely looking up from the notebook he was scribbling in furiously.

 

Of course, Mom was much more genial. A few minutes after he had sat down, she turned off the stove and placed a final plate of waffles on the table.

 

Mom turned to him with a soft smile, removing her oven mitts and putting them in the overlarge pockets of her checkered apron. “Good morning, Five, how did you sleep?”

 

He shrugged, said, “Fine, thanks.”

 

She plucked a medicine bottle from her apron, checked the label, and uncapped the bottle to shake one of the pills out into her hand. “Make sure you eat well after taking this, dear. It can cause nausea, vomiting, and severe headaches otherwise.”

 

“Well, you’ve got quite the spread here for us this morning, Mom, so I’ll be sure to eat.” He gave her a hint of a smile, quietly pleased with her kind caretaking. “Thank you.”

 

“You’re welcome, dear.”

 

Five swallowed the pill, gulping down half a glass of orange juice. Maybe, he hoped, by the time breakfast was over he’d be able to tie his own shoes. The thought made him snort.

 

“It’s too early for laughter, Five, tone it down,” came Klaus’s voice from the doorway.

 

He turned a bit, giving Klaus a look of surprise. “Isn’t a little early for you to be up?”

 

“Ugh, if only. I haven’t even _slept_ , but that’s what copious amounts of Adderall and Redbull will do to you. Totes gonna crash later.” With that, he slumped dramatically into his own chair and promptly started filling his plate with waffles.

 

Mom, who had given their newest addition to the waking world a disappointed look at his confession, resumed her humming. She moved gracefully around the kitchen collecting bowls of fruit, utensils, and other strange things before arranging them on the table. He took careful note of where she placed what – the sliced strawberries between Allison and Luther’s seats, the honey and cinnamon in front of Vanya’s empty place, a selection of mixed berries before Ben’s spot, and sticky maple syrup along with a bowl of freshly made whipped cream in front of Klaus. Finally, she gave each place at the table a rolled napkin of silverware.

 

Klaus grinned brightly. “Thank you, Mother,” he drawled, and started piling his waffles high with everything on the table – sausage, syrup, strawberries, and all.

 

“Disgusting,” Five commented wryly. Klaus didn’t even dignify that with a response, just smothered whipped cream all over the top of his monstrous, mountainous meal.

 

“How in the wo-world do you stomach that?” Diego asked with a disgusted look.

 

A devilish grin appeared on their brother's face and he pulled back his sleeve to reveal a thickly rolled blunt. Klaus winked, wisely not saying anything else in front of Mom. Not that she was oblivious. It was more of a respect thing, most likely. Diego sighed, thoroughly unsurprised, and went back to whatever he was doing with the notebook splayed out in front of him, pages askew and a pen in each end of the spiral binding.

 

Minutes ticked by as they waited for the rest of their siblings to trickle in – Klaus being the exception. He wasn’t patient enough to wait. Five also kept a wary eye out for Father coming to join them. It wasn’t every morning he had breakfast with them, mostly attending dinner and no other meal, but it wasn’t unheard of either. However, after spending half the night sleeplessly on edge, he wasn’t in the mood for their father’s observant eyes. His thumb brushed his soulmark periodically, mind lost to the mysterious happenings.

 

Luther and Allison entered, wide awake and obviously flirting across the table. He watched Allison dip her gaze to the floor and bring it back up, lashes low and fluttering when Luther met her look. The tips of Luther’s ears went pink and he started serving himself sausage links at an alarming rate. Five rolled his eyes. Amateurs.

 

Ben and Vanya entered seconds apart, though not in the “terribly obvious we can’t go anywhere separately” fashion the former pair brought with them. Five studied Number Seven carefully; she had circles under her eyes, not too noticeable, and her manner was more abrupt than usual. She sat down without speaking to anyone. She unrolled her silverware, poured herself a glass of milk, and waited for the signal to eat. No look in his direction, no greeting to Mom, no taunt back at Allison when she asked if Vanya had remembered to brush her hair this morning. She simply raised her eyes to their sister, a cold, dark look in them, and then resumed waiting.

 

Worry ate away at his appetite. He didn’t let it show, just began putting a bit of everything on his plate. He dusted his waffle in cinnamon and drizzled it with syrup; next to him, Vanya had plucked a single waffle off the platter and was slowly, deliberately, drowning it honey. Klaus was zoned out watching her, eyes following the slow descent of honey, pupils blown. Five was vaguely amused – switching between watching Klaus watch Vanya, and watching Vanya himself. His brother’s glazed look followed her hands as they speared another waffle with her fork and put it down on top of the first one. After that, he froze. Not once during the dressing of the second waffle – cinnamon and whipped cream – did Klaus look away. He seemed to be entirely focused except for the way his head kept dipping down like he was falling asleep. Five's lips twitched in amusement. Of all their siblings, Klaus was the only one with the ability to sleep with their eyes open.

 

Five looked down at his plate and then down the table, noticing that no one else had eaten yet. He then looked to the door, and Mom, wiping the counters down. His stomach growled. Ben's echoed his own and his brother laughed, eyes also darting towards the door. As he did, Pogo shuffled in from the hall.

 

Six people looked toward Pogo, Klaus unblinking and unmoving. “Good morning, children. I’m afraid Master Hargreeves won’t be joining you today. I’ve just returned from the airport; your father will be absent for the next three days. He has left instructions with myself and your mother to continue your regularly scheduled lessons and training.”

 

Murmurs erupted from the table. It was rare for Sir Reginald to leave the house apart from missions, though he'd disappeared for a few weeks or days at a time before. He usually came back looking exactly the same, acting no more or less than his usual harshly focused self. The children were much better off for it. The chance to relax even marginally without the nearly omnipotent presence of their father gave them relief, allowed them to have a bit of fun.

 

“Father didn’t say goodbye,” Allison said, a glare cut in the direction of Father's empty chair.

 

“Does he ever?” Five scoffed.

 

Luther tensed at the hard tone he directed at their sister; Allison straightened her back against the chair she was in and seemed unaffected by either of their reactions. Next to him, Vanya let out a sigh of what sounded like relief. He gave her a questioning look that she refused to acknowledge.

 

Like his siblings around him, Five shut his mouth and ate his breakfast. He had work to do. To start with, he needed Mom to tie his goddamn shoes.

 

*****

 

“Children! Scatter!”

 

All six of his siblings took off running, feet thundering down the hall – then up and down stairs, around corners, into rooms. The first few seconds were filled with laughter and shouted taunts; Diego ribbing Luther and Allison practically cackling as she sprinted away. Five could imagine each one running to their assigned area of the house. Vanya quiet and rushed, zipping past the stumbling Klaus. Ben usually reached his spot first, being one of the smallest siblings with the least amount of stairs to climb. When the house had quieted, he and Pogo shared an expectant look. Several silent moments passed.

 

Pogo held up a stop watch, waiting for Five's signal.

 

He smirked and nodded. Taking a deep breath, preparing for the pain in his chest, he channeled his focus towards gathering the power in his hands, bending space itself to his whim as Pogo started the clock.

 

Five jumped first, nearest, to the library. Under the second desk from the double doors, Ben was crouched. Appearing next to the desk was reflex. Seven times out of ten, this is where his shyest brother hid. Five reached behind the chair and into the space below, lightning fast, and snatched the red flag from Ben's hands.

 

Then, he popped into the green house and took the flag from Klaus's hair.

 

Luther was a harder target; he enjoyed finding new places in the third floor's largest guest (read: unoccupied) bedroom. Behind the doors, in the wardrobe, under the bed once. This time he attempted to be clever, standing on the desk and molding himself to the side of the giant bookshelf beside it. Five landed on the bed, in the center of the room, and darted towards Luther before he could move. Big guy still wasn’t used to his growth spurt, making him slow and prone to fumbling. The flag tied around his wrist was added to Five's collection.

 

It was the basement med room he headed for after that; his chest was hurting but he easily snatched his prize from Diego hiding under the gurney.

 

Seven was next and Five flexed his fingers before putting them to work. She hid well in the kitchen with it’s many shelves and cupboards. It took a few seconds of prowling, heart racing in excitement all while he struggled to keep his breathing even. Vanya didn’t hide too well today – her shoes visible from beneath the doors of the smaller pantry. He pulled both doors open at once, darted one hand out for her own, clutching the flag. Five shot her a smug look as she took in the surprise of his successful hunt. He held her hand tightly for a moment, a fleeting hesitation right before he brought her hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles softly. Vanya’s cheeks instantly flushed red as he winked, and then blinked away.

 

Only Allison was left. His feet stumbled a little upon entering the parlor, due more to his hasty exit than exhaustion. Familiar jumps were easier for him to make, especially in such a close range. This exercise didn’t push him too far – more focused towards precision, skill, agility. His hands were losing feeling. His chest was burning. That was pretty good for the sixth jump. And what a jump it was, landing nearly atop Allison in the alcove she favored. The only challenge was getting the red necktie she was now sporting away from her. His sister was quick, but he was determined.

 

The final flag was shoved in his pocket. He jumped back to Pogo, standing with two panting siblings in his study.

 

The soft _click_ of the stopwatch freezing made him grin. He had probably gotten a new Top Five, because of course he kept track of his best and worst times. Father certainly would. His grin only grew, twisting into something a little more proud as Luther joined Ben and Vanya by the door. The more the merrier.

 

Pogo glanced up from the watch, looking over his glasses to meet Five's eyes. He smiled at the panting boy, expression bright and so very proud of him. “Congratulations, Master Five. You've a new record, with two minutes and six seconds.”

 

His brothers clapped, Pogo joining with enthusiasm. Vanya smile brilliantly at him. Her cheeks were still flushed and he wanted to go back to those six seconds her hand was in his.

 

But a new record – that was something. He smirked openly. So what if he was smug? The memory of Vanya's pupils growing large at his touch and the taste of her skin, of victory, was still so sweet. Such excellent accomplishments so early in the day (and with three fractured ribs).

 

Five was absolutely smug.

 

*****

 

The only signal between them was a look at lunch. It wasn’t a certain expression or tick – just a light in each of their eyes to let the others know. Five had been expecting this. Hell, it was practically a tradition.

 

All seven of the Hagreeves children went about their evening as normally as possible. Nothing was broken, no fights occurred, dinner was a reasonable affair, and they all dressed for bed without complaint. Five and Vanya were both given medicine – pain meds for Five and Seven's usual mood stabilizer.

 

But if anyone had been watching closely, they would have known something was afoot. Each child ate just a bit less than usual, for starters. Luther was the last one lingering in the hall that night; he was generally the first one in bed. And, most telling of all, Diego lingered in Mom's goodnight embrace the slightest bit longer than usual. He did this any time he planned on breaking some rules.

 

Not that Five bothered to point that out to anyone but Vanya. It would be counterproductive for one of his partners in crime to be given away before the fun even started.

 

He went to bed and waited for the house to grow quiet. Once it had, he wasn’t waiting any longer. Five exchanged his pajamas for the pair of street clothes he kept hidden inside a box of mathematics textbooks he had advanced from years ago. The jeans were dark and worn to softness, a hand-me-down from Klaus’s last growth spurt. He wasn’t very fond of cut or tightness of the jeans – but beggars can’t be choosers. He added a warm, plain white shirt (“A Henley,” Klaus had told him, “is essential to every masculine presenting person's wardrobe.”) and dark red scarf. Five grabbed his shoes and jumped, Vanya's room his destination.

 

She was sitting on her bed, carefully braiding her hair. He dropped his shoes and swatted her hands away before sliding between Seven's back and the wall. Hesitantly, he stretched one leg on each side of her own. Five ran his hands through her hair, undoing the half finished plait she had started.

 

“I’ll braid your hair. You’re gonna have to tie my shoes, anyway.”

 

Vanya chuckled, relaxing in front of him as he parted her hair. “Hurt too much to bend over?”

 

He sighed. “Even with the pain killers.”

 

“Did anyone tell you where we’re meeting?”

 

“No, but I overheard Klaus betting Luther fifty bucks he couldn’t beat Diego in a round of bowling tonight, so.”

 

“Good, Ben also told me he chose the bowling alley this time.” She paused, and he could hear her grin when she asked, “Did Luther take the bet?”

 

Five finished her braid, closing it off with a white hair tie. He admired Vanya's hair and the elegant curve of her neck that it fell down. Briefly, he brushed his thumb over her soulmark; her shiver made him grin. “Of course he did.” He put a hand to her back, gently urging her forward. “Now, let's tie my shoes and pick a good spot to wait for the others.”

 

Once his laces were tied, he wrapped a fluffy, cream colored scarf around Vanya's neck and whisked her away to the bowling alley.

 

*****

 

At 8:00 p.m. on a Tuesday evening, Super Star Lanes was deserted save for a stoned teenager behind the counter and the Hargreeves.

 

Five and Seven got there first, jumping right front of the door before Five held the door open for Vanya with a knowing smirk. She wasn’t the biggest fan of spatial jumps – as they hurt a bit more when you weren’t used to them – but did take pleasure in being the _only one_ he would willingly take with him. It made her feel special. Five made her feel special.

 

They paid for their shoes and split a basket of nachos, quietly waiting for the rest of their siblings.

 

Super Star Lanes was one of Five's favorite places in the world, small as his world was. It smelled of wood polish and pizza every hour of the day. The carpets had Pollock style splatters of nacho cheese and spilled soda stains, muddying the blues and purple of the geometric design. Music and arcade game noises clashed with the thunderous sounds of pins crashing, when there were people playing. After the second or third time the Hargreeves had come here, they reached an understanding with the management: No destruction or rumoring the staff, and the children were left alone. None of the employees batted an eye at the super-powered children popping in unexpectedly, spending their few free hours unattended and uninhibited.

 

All five of their other siblings arrived at once, bundled in coats, gloves, and scarves against the cold. Five smirked at his own outfit and Vanya’s, a soft navy sweater and light wash jeans, glad that his method of transportation was hardly affected by the weather.

 

His brothers began pulling up or occupying nearby chairs, Allison taking the seat directly across from him. They were all seated before his sister turned to him with a scowl. “You and Vanya don’t have to take off without us every single time we go out, Five.”

 

The disapproval in her tone irritated him; what right did she have to scold him for doing as he pleased? The very point of getting away from home was to avoid the scolding there. “What can I say? I like a head start. Besides, it not like you walked.”

 

Allison scowled at him, said, “No, but we also didn’t teleport.”

 

“And the cab ride over was so awful, Al? Just drop it,” Ben suggested. Vanya shot him a grateful look that Five mirrored. He was a frequent peace-maker in their siblings squabbles.

 

“Why her? You never take anyone else. It’s not fair.”

 

“Allison,” Luther interjected, half warning and half pleading.

 

Anger burned through Five. This was the closest he got to spending time in the open with Seven. He wanted to ask Allison why the fuck it even mattered, when her soulmate was right next to her and walked through the door holding her hand? But Vanya had put her hand on his leg, under the table, keeping him in check. With hard, hateful eyes and a grin, Five said, “Because Number Seven is my favorite, obviously.”

 

Klaus laughed, smacking the neighboring Diego on the back while Seven shot him an incredulous look. Across from him, Allison's face twisted into a snarl and Five knew in his bones that whatever she said next would piss him off. He shoved back from the table and stood.

 

Not sparing a glance for their other siblings, Five said, “I’m going to the restroom, Vanya. Pay for a lane and we’ll get started when I’m back. Sort the teams for me, will you?” He slapped a twenty on the table and left.

 

On his way to the bathroom, which was usually gross enough that he had no intention of using it except to cool down, he wondered which of his brothers would chase after him. Diego avoided other people's altercations – preferring instead to start his own. While Ben kept the peace, Klaus generally made snide comments or hilarious observations about the ongoing drama. So it would be a toss up of Ben and Luther, the latter of which liked to try and “mend things between the team.”

 

Five hoped it was Ben.

 

It wasn’t.

 

Luther opened the swinging door with purpose, stepping into the room and glancing around the stalls and urinals for anyone else. They were alone, of course. He approached Five with a straight spine and squared shoulders.

 

“I know Allison shouldn’t have been so rude about Number Seven, but she just feels left out.” When that didn’t draw a pity apology from Five immediately, Luther pressed on. “She just thinks you like Seven better-“

 

"I just _told her_ I like Vanya better.”

 

“-and you know how Allison is used to-“

 

“People falling at her feet because she can manipulate them?” Five bit out.

 

“-being the center of attention,” his brother corrected.

 

Five scoffed. “How priceless, coming from Number One,” he mocked.

 

That made Luther bristle, crossing his arms with a scowl. “Look, Five, I don’t care if you like Vanya or Ben or Pogo best; I just want to have a good night bowling. Can we please shelf the issues? Allison won’t say anything else.” He turned to leave, having said his piece, but Five stopped him.

 

With a hand on his arm and the most serious look he could level at Luther, Five told him, “Allison has Dad wrapped around her finger. She has action figures and posters and fan mail, for Christ's sake.” Luther made to interrupt, but Five wouldn’t let him. Not for this. “She has you, whether or not you two morons have sorted out your soulmarks. Seven? She doesn’t have any of that, and never will. But she has me. I don’t want to hear any more questions, or jokes, or barbs about it. Do you understand me?”

 

Luther looked down at him, and then the hand on his arm. Five was smaller than his brothers, all but Ben, but Luther most of all. He stood a full head shorter and just over half as broad, but Five knew who was quicker. He had speed and spatial jumping on his side, as well as his opponent’s predictability. If it were to come to blows between them, he could handle it. Luther was strong – but he wasn’t nearly as smart.

 

But Luther didn’t get pissed off at the clear, commanding tone in Five's voice or annoyed at his defense of Seven. Instead, he nodded. “You won’t hear anything from me. But don’t get too involved. You know Dad won’t handle you taking an interest in Number Seven.”

 


	4. Now you're waiting up for him

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Five continues to search for answers, only finding clues that he can't put together. Vanya expresses frustration.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, real talk, Game of Thrones is back on. I'm preoccupied by that and day to day boring things, so updates will be a bit slower. I'll clean the chapter up later today. Thanks for all your sweet comments and kudos! Chapter title from Fall Out Boy.

If he had timed his disappearance right, Five had forty-five minutes to find what he needed and get out. The library was nearly deserted; Wednesday evenings meant most people were at home or church, not stalking the Soulmark Science aisles in the public library. Five, of course, preferred it that way. He certainly didn’t want anyone striking up a conversation or worse – recognizing him. Publicity was all well and good if it kept the monstrous egos of Allison and Reginald fed. But Five wanted nothing to do with it. 

 

The shelves were sturdy, made of thick wood and towering over him by at least two feet. Thankfully, their town’s library was well maintained; no cobwebs were clinging to corners of shelves and there wasn’t a hint of dust on even the oldest tomes. Five traced spine after spine of soulmate related books, searching for a hint of unusual or rarely spread information. His backpack was sagging under the weight of what he had found already. There was a book on myths from ancient civilizations – containing stories and theories found recorded in cities such as Kyoto, Istanbul, and Rome. He found two books written by doctors, detailing the bond a soulmark represents as well as the soulmate the mark points towards. A few collections of scientific papers written over strange marks were also thrown in. Five moved from shelf to shelf. He crouched to study the bottom sections and rolled the ladders inch by inch down the aisle to read the tallest titles. No book would go unstudied until he had answers. 

 

He scanned all five aisles of soulmate-centric tomes. By the time he was done, he had thirteen options for possible information. Five checked his watch. He had fifteen minutes to spare. Grinning, he slung the backpack over his shoulder and jumped to the section on the third floor with different musical compositions. There was time to pick up something fun for Vanya while he was there, too. Five minutes later, he was blinking out of the library. 

 

He jumped into Vanya’s room, empty as he thought it would be, and stuffed the three folders of violin sheet music he had swiped under her pillow. The anticipation made him grin. Maybe she’d like all of them and play her favorite for him. 

 

Five went to his room next. He dropped the backpack, stripped his clothes off, grabbed a pair of pajamas, and jumped to the bathroom down the hall. Like when he left, the door was locked and the shower was running. Steam filled the room and fogged the mirror. A portable radio played classical music, more than loud enough to drown out any polite knocks or inquiries from outside. Five draped the pajamas over the empty half of the towel rack, drawing back the shower curtain. The seven minutes he had to spare were spent washing the day’s training away. Reginald hadn’t returned, but Wednesdays were usually very physically demanding lessons that lasted for hours at a time. 

 

Today, from first light until lunch, he and the other Umbrella Team members took turns partnering up for sparring sessions. Five had to be careful with his spatial jumps during these lessons. Due to their length, he was forced to space out his limited number of jumps. Too many left him unable to defend himself after escaping whatever had forced him to use his powers in the first place. Like Allison and Klaus, his powers weren’t very physically offensive in nature. Therefore, Five had to rely on his hand-to-hand combat skills. Luther had the obvious edge in these spars; Diego a close second, as always. 

 

Diego was not Five's favorite brother, that was Ben by far. But Five admired Diego enough to be angry with the never-ending struggle for validation Reginald had forced him into. In his gut, Five knew Reginald had numbered them in that order for a reason; making Luther number One fostered an inferiority complex in Diego, the most competitive of his brothers. He wasn’t sure if this was some insane foresight their father possessed or pure coincidence despite the purposeful ordering system. Due to his limited powers, Diego worked himself to exhaustion to try to keep up with Luther physically. It was no competition. But their numbers – their very identities – made it a competition. 

 

But Five spent this short time in the shower contemplating his own powers. He mulled over an idea he recently had, a very different kind of offensive than retreating. If Reginald wouldn’t let him time travel, and Vanya remained so anxious at the suggestion, then maybe this was the next path he should consider. It required totally different math equations and studies from time traveling. All of his previous notes would be useless for this project, but he could simply shelf them for now. 

 

He turned off the showerhead, shoving his hands under the gushing tub faucet to prune his fingers as much as possible. There was a night of reading ahead of him. While that wasn’t unusual (and neither were his once a week, indulgently long “showers”), he didn’t want to give anyone a reason to look closer. Not at his suspiciously dry hands or very specific book choices. So long as he was left alone, it would go well. 

 

 *****  

 

Five grabbed the first book out of the hidden pile and tossed it on his pillow. He stretched out on his stomach, ribs pleasantly numb from his after-dinner pain killers. Cracking open the his new reading material, Five also listened carefully for Mom to come say her goodnights. She wasn’t expected for another half hour, but every once in a while her schedule varied. A bit down the hall Vanya was playing something new. He smiled and stroked a finger over his soulmark; it didn’t distract him for long, though. 

 

He needed answers. 

 

The half hour passed and was marked by Mom wishing him sweet dreams. She closed his door and he was free to enjoy the relative privacy afforded to him. Seven put her violin away just a few minutes later, and Mom made her way upstairs. He judged the first pick from the pile useless by the time her steps faded away. Tossing it aside, he grabbed another. It was a slim, short scientific journal of comparing the recorded experiences of misplaced marks versus normal soulmarks. The author traveled the world and spent six months in both Spain and Alaska to work intimately with two couples affected by misplaced marks. Five was eager to read this volume; real people experiencing similar side effects would calm him significantly. 

 

It took him a little over an hour to read the book. The study highlighted a sense of intuition between both couples, from little things like what their partner is in the mood to eat to mirroring when they experience strong emotions. In fact, mood sharing affected the couple from Spain near daily. It wasn’t just intense moods, either. The couple experienced almost everything together; one entry in the journal detailed a full day's worth of mood mirroring. Mild surprise, a headache, moderate irritation, boredom, multiple moments of amusement, nostalgia. All this while being on other sides of town, one person at work and the other visiting a close friend. The Alaskan couple being studied had a much milder experience with shared emotions; instead, their bond's strength lay in eerily accurate lie detection. One could not lie to the other. It allowed the pair to know when their partner was being dishonest, no matter how small the lie. Half-truths and well-worded excuses were able to pass, but not always. The studies noted that the more malicious the lie, the less likely it would be accepted through the bond. When a lie was detected, the liar’s mark would sting and their partner would simply  _know_  the other one had been dishonest. 

 

By the end of the book, Five felt no closer to figuring out what the hell was going on with his own mark. The only time he had seen Vanya’s mark – while braiding her hair and then covering it with the scarf – it had looked completely normal. However, at the time, so did his. 

 

He opened the first collection of scientific papers he had found. All six of the studies recorded in this collection focused on abnormal bonds. 

 

Useless. 

 

Five grew more frustrated each time he turned a page and found nothing, each time he traversed the tome cover to cover and found  _nothing_. 

 

 *****  

 

He awoke at first light, face pressed to the pages of a stupidly pointless book and ribs on fire from the way he was laying. It was the fifth one he'd scoured for information. There was no luck to be had, from early evening until whenever Five ended up passing out. Rubbing the creases from his face, he shoved the books to the floor and went back to sleep. 

 

When the morning wake up call came, Five sighed. He didn’t have it in him to fight, not today, merely dragging himself through his morning routine. 

 

At a quarter to seven, he jumped to the kitchen with a scowl and untied shoe laces. 

 

Mom served him a smile and his medicine; she tied his shoes without complaint and waved him towards the breakfast table. It was carefully arranged with servings of oatmeal, plates of toast, a variety of fresh fruit, and boiled eggs. All of his siblings but Seven and Klaus were there. There was small talk floating around the table without the threat of Reginald’s presence to stifle it. Ben was the lone mute, nose buried in a book. 

 

As he eased himself into his designated chair, Diego was saying, “I hope my soul...mate would think superpowers are cool. I can protect them.” 

 

Allison had a tiny scowl, furiously mixing cinnamon into her oatmeal. “Not all superpowers are so straight forward.” 

 

“Yeah but you could just tell your soulmate to like your powers. No big deal,” Five drawled. 

 

“That is definitely a big deal. She would have to explain her powers and not force anything – otherwise there would be no trust in the relationship.” 

 

“It’s awfully mature of you to look at it that way, Luther.” 

 

“Manipulation is a weapon. Weapons have no place between soulmates.” 

 

Rolling her eyes, their sister thumped her glass of milk on the table loud enough to gain their attention. “Using my powers against my soulmate would be wrong. And it would be wrong of them to judge me just because I have this power. But thanks for your opinions, boys.” She looked down her nose at the two, somehow, despite sitting at an equal or lesser height than her brothers. 

 

Five buttered a few pieces of toast and ignored her. 

 

“Well,” Ben chimed in, “there are weirder powers to explain.” 

 

A silence fell over the table. Manipulation powers could cause issues in a relationship if there was a lack of trust or, for example, an unstably narcissistic and ambitious person wielding said powers. Other abilities – like Luther’s strength and Diego’s projectile control – were easy by comparison. They could even be hidden or passed off as impressive talents. Five never really gave any thought to telling an outsider about his own powers. He didn’t know the extent of them to begin with; that alone would make them difficult to explain. He certainly hadn’t spent time fretting about his potential soulmate taking issue with his extraordinary abilities. Vanya expressed her anxieties about testing time traveling, but that was out of concern for his well-being. Five had thought about how Klaus and Ben might have to tell their soulmate they weren’t exactly normal. With Klaus, it would also explain the continued and worsening drug abuse; his powers were numbed when he was, so he appeared sane only as far as a budding junkie seemed sane. 

 

But Ben, that was a different story. His power wasn’t just a sixth sense or invisible ability. It was physical, brutal, painful. There were after effects, unlike with Diego and Allison. The monster in Ben – and it was in him, not a part of him, Five firmly believed – wasn't for the faint of heart. With the way he had seen Ben stroking the wreath of marigolds on his wrist, Five certainly hoped his brother’s soulmate was up to the challenge. 

 

Seven walked in the door and everyone collectively let the topic of soulmates drop. They weren’t sure what to say after that, anyway. The silence lost its tension as the children went about eating their breakfast. Five leaned his chair back on its back legs, peeling a sweet golden apple and watching Seven. He didn’t bother to be subtle about it. Either she would catch him first, or one of their siblings would. Vanya was used to his attention; he liked to watch her play when he could, enjoyed studying her as she worked on her lessons, positively stared when they were alone. His siblings noticing his stare would cement what he had told Luther. There was no guarantee Luther had told the others about their conversation. They had spent the night bowling, evens against odds, and had a good time as the tension melted away. Even if he hadn’t shared Five’s declaration, Five was determined all the younger Hargreeves pick up on the new attitude. 

 

They were to give Vanya the same respect they gave each other, from now on. 

 

Half-finished with his apple, Five looked away from Vanya when Klaus entered. He absent-mindedly greeted his punctual siblings, taking his seat and pouring himself a glass of orange juice. Five returned his gaze to Seven; as he did, he felt someone else looking at him. When he glanced up, Mom caught his stare. She was smiling her regularly dazzling smile. But the skin around her eyes was too tense and her humming had stopped. 

 

He smiled at her, put his chair on the ground. The tension around her eyes eased and he looked back to Seven, testing a theory. Mom returned to the sink. She started humming again as she pulled on her pink rubber gloves to wash the morning’s dishes. Vanya looked at him with wide eyes and a slightly raised brow. 

 

His smile turned to a smirk. Five finished peeling his apple, placing the knife and peel on the table. Seven kept eye contact with him as he took the first bite. He raised his own brows as his teeth crunched into the fruit; she rolled her eyes and plucked a blackberry from her plate, almost managing to look dispassionate if not for the corners of her lips attempting to turn up. Five rolled his eyes back at her. 

 

Luther cleared his throat, both Five and Vanya snapping their heads to look at him. The latter’s cheeks were rosy, but the both of them were grinning. All the other siblings looked to Luther in their own time. “Pogo stopped by before most of you got to the kitchen this morning.” At that, Allison straightened and Diego visibly tuned the conversation out. “We’ve got our regular morning lessons to do, and then we’ll have lunch as usual. After lunch, the Umbrella Academy has a scheduled mission. Pogo will brief us before we leave. He said Dad assured him it was simple, some sort of security for an event.” 

 

“We’re mall cops, now?” Klaus snorted. 

 

Brow furrowed, Five privately echoed the sentiment. They had done missions for payment before, things like rescues and searches or escorting important people. Assignments like that were rare. Reginald preferred to keep them in the spotlight as superheroes, capitalizing on the exciting and noble dangers of crime-stopping or justice-seeking. The planned missions were a different kind of difficult; they required the team to work together in ways that weren’t fueled by near death at every moment, forcing the Academy to use their powers much more offensively. Patience and watchfulness were not strengths every member of the team possessed. For-hire missions were usually stressful. 

 

“Pogo will brief us before the mission,” Luther echoed tiredly. 

 

The siblings finished their meal with a small amount of chatter. Diego and Ben entered a half hushed, half facial expression conversation that interested Five very much from what he could read of it. His lip reading wasn’t as good as Vanya’s, but it seemed that now five of his siblings had found their soulmate. He didn’t catch which of his brothers it had been; the conversation seemed positive, though, if concerned. Later, he vowed, he would mention it to Seven and see what she had heard of the information. She was often able to catch whispers and hidden movements simply by being overlooked. Five smirked at the thought of how often she was underestimated. Morons. 

 

The gossip and musing on Vanya kept him amused through his lessons. 

 

Lunch brought the siblings to the agreement that so long as the mission went well, they would go out that night. It was Seven’s turn to pick their destination. She teased to Five, Klaus, and Ben that she would have all afternoon to decide where they would go. Five could see the hardness in her eyes as she joked; with a quiet sense of wonder, he knew she was lying. Seven would spend the entire time they were away anxious and annoyed – certainly not wistfully pondering. 

 

Was that how well he knew her, or how well their bond connected them?

 

The thought stayed with him as dutifully followed his siblings up the stairs. They filed into the brightly lit study, windows filtering in from a wall full of windows.

 

All six of the Umbrella Academy members sat on the mirrored couches in Pogo’s office, three on each. The room smelled of the various plants growing in the large windowsills behind Pogo’s desk. It was a clean, earthy scent that complimented the day’s sunshine. They all waited in silence for information on their mission.

 

Pogo entered the room shuffling a handful of papers. He nodded to the assembled teenagers, a smile in his eyes. “Good afternoon, children. How are you all today?” Each one answered, mumbles and nods from both couches. “Good, good. Today’s assignment is sure to be fairly simple. Your father has accepted the request that you children all work together as a sort of private security team for a political debate happening in a few hours. There has been unrest in the city and a few threats aimed at one of the candidates involved. We have not been informed of any threat against the event itself, but the team behind it wishes to be as careful as possible.” 

 

“It must be a sizable check, if Dad is hiring us as security,” Allison mused. 

 

Inclining his head, Pogo said, “Yes, though you know that your father is not concerned with the amount of money he makes in these endeavors. He wishes for it to be a sort of team-building exercise. I believe Master Hargreeves said something about too much animosity between members being an issue he refuses to deal with.” He leveled his gaze at every member in the room, making sure the message got across. Hormones and petty teenage insecurities would not tear apart Reginald Hargreeves’ perfect team apart. 

 

“Change into your uniforms, children, and I’ll escort you to the debate.” 

 

The Umbrella Academy filed out to ready themselves for their next mission. 

 

 *****  

 

Pogo was right; a more boring mission had never existed. They were introduced to the candidates and their usual security team, given information of the perimeters and possible places to hide near the courtyard. Five placed himself inside the courthouse behind the debate, at the giant second floor window that allowed a near perfect view of the ongoing debate below. He would periodically jump to four spots hidden from his second story perch. After checking each blind spot, Five returned to the window and analyzed the crowd. He noted a few angry civilians, muttering and making the occasional loud jest. Luther and Diego were on crowd control. If any of the grumblers seemed too agitated, Five would appear to one of his brothers and point out the problem. 

 

But the event was mostly quiet. He had a buzzing worry in his stomach the entire time – and nothing ever happened. It grew as the time passed, but Five resolved to brush it off as things kept going smoothly. 

 

The three hours dragged, but it was uneventful. For that, he and his ribs were thankful. 

 

When the event was over, they were thanked profusely and had their hands shook half off by every tie-wearing, bright-smiled person in sight. Luther stood in for Reginald in communicating with the suits and then the press, Allison smiling brightly at his side and fielding questions where he fumbled. Five thought on their matched personalities. It was impressive how fluidly they worked together; the pair was a perfectly stitched part of team. He and Diego could achieve such easy teamwork every once in a while. They had an impressive ability to work in tandem during high tension fights, but not normal circumstances like this. Was it a part of their soulmark’s bond, he wondered, that encouraged such compatible actions? (No, they still had not officially declared themselves soulmates. Five knew they were just as cowardly as he and Vanya. He did not know if their reasons were the same.) 

 

Pogo waited by the car for them, ever eager to avoid the cameras as Five himself was. Klaus ambled behind him, smelling of cigarettes and something alcoholic, tugging Ben along with him. Ben seemed very relaxed for the end of an assignment. Five felt that way, as well, and also eager to get home to a private minute with Vanya. He allowed Pogo to look him over. Once it was established that he was fine, he nodded to his escort and phased himself home. 

 

He walked past Mom dusting in the foyer, called to her that everything went well and the others were on their way. She beamed in answer and kept at her work. Five trotted up the stairs, grinning to himself. His fist hit rapped on the door before his feet had settled outside Vanya’s room. The gentle music that had been playing stopped immediately. Five’s grin grew. 

 

The door was pulled open in a hurry, revealing a scowling Number Seven in her unusually disheveled uniform. Her tie and jacket gone, collar tugged at, shoes missing. He absently noted the desk covered in scattered pages of music beneath her violin and bow. But then she smiled and he only had eyes for Vanya, his best friend, his soulmate. 

 

She pulled him into her room, where he was slowly starting to feel more comfortable as the hours they spent together there added up. He peeled his own jacket off and threw it over the back of the desk chair. They sat side by side on the bed, pressed together hip to heel, hands twined. Vanya started asking about the day’s mission right away. 

 

“It was boring,” he summarized. 

 

Vanya let out a deep breath, relaxed further into his side. “I spent the entire time worrying. My hands shook too much for me to get any real practice done. It was awful.” 

 

“I knew you’d worry, but there was nothing to fear today. Everything went fine. Didn’t even have to talk to Father Dearest before I jumped home to see you,” he joked. Her grip tightened on his hand and he returned the gesture. 

 

“You knew I’d worry?” Seven looked at him, puzzled and smiling a bit. 

 

“You have been recently, you know. Every time we leave. It’s sweet, seeing you get all worked up because I’m out there kicking ass.” 

 

She tensed and scowled at him. “I worry because you’re out there fighting criminals with guns, knives, explosives, and a severe lack of concern for your safety. Believe it or not,” she scoffed, “I prefer seeing you come home in one piece.” 

 

“Vanya, I didn’t mean-” 

 

“No!” Her grip on his hand was fierce now, just as fierce as the light in her eyes when she interrupted him. By the way she launched straight into her panicked, angry speech, he assumed this was something that had been building up. Five should have seen this coming, should have taken her fears seriously. She seemed to agree. “No, Five, you don’t have to watch me be forced to endanger myself and come home with stab wounds, sprains, and  _fractured bones_! It’s no joke to me; you aren’t some tough guy getting into fights with kids after school. You risk your life. What happens if you lose it? What happens if I lose you? What happens if I lose my soulmate?” 

 

Her eyes were wet and nearly burning in their intensity, but something was burning much brighter. Between them, held in place by Vanya’s iron grip. His soulmark was glowing again. What was visible from where his sleeve had ridden up shone bright enough to grab their attention from the fading sunlight in Seven’s singular window. The hidden portion still lit up his sleeve; there was no mistaking where the light came from. 

 

They gaped at it together, the fight dissipating between them. Vanya gasped. Her eyes darted between the mark and Five. He had no answers to give her obviously questioning looks; he had no answers to give his damn self, despite continued trying. 

 

Frantically, he compared the first time he witnessed the mark’s odd behavior and now, drawing no similarities. Before, it was late at night during a spontaneous storm. Vanya wasn’t around and he hadn’t been awake to be feeling anything strong enough to warrant a glow in the dark soulmark. Now, it was the opposite. He was stressed, certainly, and with Vanya during a pleasantly sunny afternoon. The situations were nowhere near similar, so he couldn’t draw any comparisons in the environment affecting his mark. 

 

“Five?” Seven’s voice trembled, her hand releasing his. They both reached for his mark at the same time. They studied it together, breathing in sharply as the mark’s light faded to something duller. 

 

“It only happened once before today, in the middle of the night. I just woke up and it was glowing. There’s a pile of books I swiped from the library that I’ve been looking for answers in. I haven’t found shit so far.” 

 

“Is... Is mine glowing?” 

 

Shock froze Five for a second. He should have thought of checking that as soon as his started going haywire. They were connected, after all, so simultaneous odd behavior made sense. Vanya turned slightly, allowing Five access to her back. He pulled her hair away from the nape of her neck. There her soulmark was revealed, glowing just as faintly as his. His thumb brushed over it gently, absently stroking it, a warm feeling in his chest. They were odd together. 

 

“Yeah. Your mark is glowing, too, Vanya.” 

 

His hands fell away as she turned back around. Hesitantly, she settled back against his side. Her fingers covered his mark; her breaths were too light, panicked. “Do you think its because we were fighting?” 

 

“No, I don’t. We weren’t fighting the first time.” He frowned at the way her voice hitched with the question, moving his arm from between them to around her. With a glance at the clock, he said, “There’s two hours before anyone will come looking for us, since Reginald is still blessing us with his absence. I propose you practice one of those songs I so gallantly, temporarily stole for you while I hit the books. Even if we don’t have an answer by the dinner, it’s not a bad way to spend the evening.” 

 

The worry didn’t leave Seven’s eyes, but then again, he knew it hadn’t left his own. But she pressed her face to his neck for a few moments. The smile buried against his collar made him feel as though he’d said the right thing. When she felt like letting him go, he’d go fetch his books. 


	5. But because of you I might think twice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Five makes a few discoveries and comes to terms with a hard truth, bruising his ego in the process. Vanya shows him it's not all that bad to be on everyone else's level.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took a bit longer than normal, though I gave a bit of a warning. Between yelling at my television and actually mapping out a solid outline for this story, I managed to punch this chapter out. It's got a lot of feelings, a lot of developments moving along. I hope all my sweet readers enjoy it. Chapter title from Twenty One Pilots.
> 
> Alternative chapter summary: Bitch, sit down, be humble.

All seven of the Hargreeves children were eager for dinner to be over. It was almost noticeable, with their tense looks and nervous energy. Five wanted to reprimand Diego for his bouncing leg, as well as Allison for the constant tapping of her nails on the chair she sat in. Their father's absence did not mean an absence of rules; they were just more likely to get away with breaking the rules, if they could keep it together. 

 

For a group of teenagers who regularly took lessons in stealth, they were hopelessly obvious. Five took a second to fix a number of his siblings with a disapproving look. None of them noticed – not manic Klaus with blown pupils, anxious Diego, plank-board stiff Luther, or Allison nearly thrumming with impatience. Ben, however, did. He hid his smirk behind today’s novel. Vanya didn’t bother to hide her grin and rolling eyes at their siblings’ obliviousness. 

 

It was her turn to choose their destination for the night. Sir Reginald would be back tomorrow, so this was their last chance for an outing for the foreseeable future. They very rarely took the risk of sneaking out if their father was in town; only certain events that would require him to be away for hours at a time gave them the chance. The next time the Hargreeves managed a night out would be Luther’s pick, so Five’s attitude towards the future outing was already a bit dimmed. As Vanya was putting away her violin before dinner, she told them she'd chosen the donut shop for tonight's venue. He wasn’t opposed. A night of sweets and laughter was preferable to the slightly stiff competitiveness of last night’s bowling. She also told him that she didn’t want to jump to their destination tonight. They argued about her decision, but Seven held firm. She didn’t want to cause any more trouble. Vanya pointed out that with their father coming back soon, and the emphasis he was putting on teamwork among the Umbrella Academy, it was important for everything to seem as normal as possible. They couldn’t afford extra attention. 

 

And so, Five would comply with her wishes. Even if he didn’t like them. The pain medicine Mom gave him before dinner would allow him to walk the couple of blocks without wheezing, and Vanya's logic would keep him from complaining about her choice.

 

Seven’s request and the two hours spent reading before dinner, only to find no new information, had left him less than relaxed despite the potentially fun night out. Generally, he felt content after listening to Vanya practice for so long. Five enjoyed watching the ease she slid into when she felt comfortable with a song, could spot the tension in her fingers and forearms when she had been playing too long. Today, he tried to focus on the worthless books he’d plundered from the library. Each one left him more bitter than the last. 

 

* 

 

Luther and Klaus were in the alleyway when Five dropped down from the fire escape ladder. They shared surprised looks; Luther grinned at him when the shock faded, a mixture of smugness and pride aimed at Five. He gave his brother an annoyed look in return. When Vanya made it to the last rung of the ladder, Five grabbed her around the waist and eased her down. She shot him a grin over her shoulder when her feet hit the pavement. 

 

“I didn’t expect to see you two out here. Shouldn’t you have our booth picked out by now?” Klaus teased, reaching for the joint tucked into his sleeve.  

 

“It seemed like a nice night to walk,” Five drawled. 

 

Vanya looped her arm through Five’s and tugged him forward. A smile was barely visible behind the scarf bundled around her neck. He put his hands in his pockets, tucking her arm closer, before nodding to his brothers. 

 

“Looks like we’ll be the first ones there anyway, Seven,” he teased. 

 

She grinned at the other two. “We’ll make sure to pick a nice booth. Hopefully the others won’t keep you waiting too long.” Vanya started walking, making Five go along with her; she didn’t look back at Klaus’s catcalls and Luther’s objections. 

 

They made it halfway down the block before they could hear their brothers and sister, far behind and ten times as loud. 

 

“They’re much too obvious to be sneaking out. I don’t even think they were out of earshot of the house before Diego and Luther started that argument.” 

 

“Diego and Luther don’t even wait for Mom or Pogo to leave the room before starting an argument,” Vanya pointed out. 

 

Five laughed, eyes glittering with amusement. It felt so good to not watch his back for a few moments. “You’ve got a good point. I just hope they don’t intend to catch up.” 

 

“So you're willing to walk, but not with the others?” Vanya shot him a little smirk, holding his arm a bit tighter and laying her head on his shoulder. “If you hadn’t already told them I was your favorite, I think they would know.” 

 

“Not Allison. You have to be blunt about it, or she assumes everyone loves her the most.” 

 

Five could practically hear the eye roll Vanya no doubt demonstrated at his comment. However, her voice was small when she asked, “And you’re determined to make sure she knows you love me the most?” 

 

He shot a glace over his shoulder, both looking and listening for the bulk of their family. The street was empty and quiet. He thought about stopping in the middle of the sidewalk, taking Vanya's face in her hands, and kissing her thoroughly. It was a thought he had a lot recently, like when she sent him unimpressed looks over Klaus’s jokes at dinner or when he watched Seven ever so gently put her violin in it’s case. Five had never kissed Seven, or anyone, not properly. He’s nearly certain she hadn’t either, but he never asked. Vanya probably wouldn’t mind if he kissed her, he thought. She was much more affectionate towards him than anyone else; he was affectionate towards no one but her.  

 

But Five  _was_  sure that the added intimacy would be a dangerous aspect to their relationship. Already, he craved her attention. Five wanted every smile that Vanya smiled to be aimed his way, every casual touch she gave to go to him, everything. Five always wanted everything – respect, power, the love of his “parents,” knowledge – but with Vanya, it was stronger. She was his soulmate. He figured a part of him had always known, recognized the fledgling bond that hadn’t been cemented by their marks' appearances before the proper age. His wants towards Vanya were strong and only grew stronger the more he fed them. 

 

No, he wouldn’t allow himself that chance to mess up. 

 

Instead, he untangled his arm from hers and wrapped it around her waist. She raised her eyes to meet his, both of them a different kind of anxious. “If Allison doesn’t know by now, I would have to tell her directly.” Five was frustrated, annoyed at himself and left feeling inadequate. Equations were his specialty, not expression. Given the chance, he would shout from the rooftops his love for Vanya. Telling her that? He sighed. “I love you, much more than I’ll be able to express most of the time. But that doesn’t mean any other idiot in this world will be allowed to think I love them above all else. Because you, Vanya, will be above all else. You’re my soulmate, Seven.” 

 

The neon lights of the donut shop appeared before them. Five's chest was compressed under the weight of his confession and his thick winter coat. The scarf around his neck felt strangling, though it wasn’t looped tightly at all. 

 

“Thank you, Five. I love you, too,” she said in the softest, sweetest voice he'd ever heard. 

 

Vanya was the first person he ever loved. Five certainly didn’t love his father; their mother was a well programmed, doting robot – though he did hold an affection for Mom. He liked Ben, even Klaus and Diego to an extent. Luther and Allison were tolerated, at the end of the day. But Vanya inspired emotions he had only read about before. She allowed him to feel such wonderful things, like aching loneliness, a warmth in his heart that came to life with just a look, and a fierce need to stand by her side. He loved her, and she loved him. 

 

He held the door open for her when they arrived, half lost in a fantasy of jumping them as far as he could and never coming back. Seven led him to a corner booth, taking one end for themselves. There were only two other customers in the shop, a couple of older men drinking coffee and swapping stories at the bar. Five kept one eye on them and one eye on the door. 

 

When the waitress came around, a pretty older woman with tired gray eyes, Vanya ordered an assortment of donuts for them both along with two glasses of milk. He sat back and watched her order for them, making no comments or corrections. Seven knew him well enough to order anywhere they went. The waitress left with a smile and a nod. Chimes rang out from above the entrance just as she disappeared behind the swinging doors to the kitchen. The other five of the Hargreeves children ambled into the diner, cheeks pink from the cold. 

 

Five waved a hand to call them over, scooting closer to Vanya and allowing Ben to slide in next to him. Klaus crawled half on the bench, half under the table to take the seat next to Seven. He draped an arm over her shoulders, his fingers brushing Five’s shoulder in greeting. He nodded to Klaus, abstractly admiring the interesting collection of rings and scarves he had decorated himself with today. Klaus’s fashion sense had exploded in the previous year, rebelling from the strict uniform of the Academy as much as he could in their down time. Five’s pretty sure that he even caught a glimpse of a tattoo when Klaus was exiting the bathroom in a towel a few weeks ago (which he knew their father would hate; he only tolerated their soulmarks because there was no other choice). He was particularly fond of the days that Allison wasn’t around for this interview or that article, so Klaus had the freedom of raiding her closet. Most of the time, it was worth it if only for the look on Luther’s face. 

 

The golden couple sat next to Klaus, followed by Diego taking the end of the bench. He sat beside Allison and glanced nervously around at the nearly deserted diner. 

 

Five watched as the others interacted. Vanya had tensed when Klaus first slung his arm over her, but didn’t seem too uncomfortable. She wrapped her hand around Five’s under the table while Klaus kept his hand on Five’s shoulder; the weird three-way connection between them was a new sensation to him. He actively avoided in-depth conversation and physical interaction with members of the Umbrella Academy. There was no point in it, to him. Seven and Mom were the two exceptions to his rule. His caretaker and his soulmate earned a higher level of respect and adoration than his teammates. They lived together and they worked together. What sort of family was consistently pitted against each other, but told they would only succeed as a team? Any sense of family they could have had was twisted by the rivalry their father instilled in them years ago. 

 

He wanted to be mature enough to rise above that, but at his core he also believed himself to be stronger, smarter than the others. 

 

Vanya laughed at something Klaus was whispering to her, their eyes darting to Luther and back to each other. She tightened her grip on his hand and glanced at Five with dancing eyes. She was the best of them, even better than him – without powers, even. 

 

Was she so good because she didn’t have powers, he wondered? Is that what corrupted the rest of them? If Vanya had powers, would she be just as awful? 

 

If Vanya had powers, she would have been brought up as just another competitor. Five realized that Number Seven would be exactly that; she would have been the seventh member of the Umbrella Academy. Seven would have then been involved in their training, their missions. Their rescues, their kills, their injuries, their forced competitiveness. Would he even see her as he did now, or would Five see her as just another member of a team he loathed? 

 

He watched Klaus laugh with Vanya. His brother had dark circles under his eyes. When he waved a hand around to emphasize whatever he was saying, Five noticed he was shaking. There was a light of amusement in Number Four’s eyes, but also a...flatness. It was a deadened quality Five recognized from many of the older law enforcement officers and a few seasoned criminals the Academy had fought. Klaus had been affected more than his other siblings by his powers, maybe even more than Ben. At least Ben still seemed able to keep his optimism; Ben had dreams, even if he didn’t talk about them often. But Klaus? Five knew he didn’t have dreams, knew he barely had the will to get up in the morning. 

 

“So, tell me, Klaus,” Five said, leaning forward. He cut off some question Luther was asking their brother, but it mattered not. The whole table was watching. “How would you improve Allison’s outfit today?” 

 

The slightest hint of confusion clouded Klaus’s eyes for a moment. His face split into a grin and he placed a hand to the side of his mouth, conspiratorially stage-whispering, “Between you and me, we both know that yellow isn’t her best color.” He removed his hand and studied Allison with a critical eye. She raised a brow in return, but she almost looked like she was smiling. “I definitely would have paired those jeans with your emerald sweater, All. The one with the itchy tag but adorable glitter thread? Keep the boots, cuff the jeans, add some bling.” Klaus grinned wide, slapped his hands on the table, and nodded. 

 

Allison just sighed and rolled her eyes. “You’re going to be an expensive stylist when I’m walking down the red carpet, aren’t you?” 

 

A startled, shaky laugh came from Four. The hand he had on Five’s shoulder fisted the arm of his sweater in a movement of excited affection. “That depends. Do I get to travel with you or am I shopping from a luxurious hotel room?” 

 

“The heels on her boots aren’t good for running, though. A quick escape could be important.” 

 

Five was prepared to mock the micro-focus Luther seemed to have on danger lurking around every corner, but Vanya piped up first. “To be fair, I’m pretty sure Allison can run in any heel.” 

 

Everyone laughed, Luther acknowledging the logic in that and Allison crossing her arms with a smirk. It was rare to see their leader so easily silenced. Rarer still was it to see the two girls have a moment of shared amusement between them. Vanya wasn’t the competitive type, unsurprisingly, but that didn’t mean Allison wasn’t happy to show her up any chance she got. A quiet truce between them was nice, Five thought. 

 

“If it was a stiletto, she m-may have a hard time running just because they’re small enough to get wedged in cracks or whatever,” Diego added. 

 

His siblings turned to him in surprise. Diego looked down, shrugged. “Stiletto is also a kni-knife. It’s one of mmm...my favorites.” 

 

“See, Luther? This is why I wear wedges.” 

 

The waitress returned, bringing Five and Vanya their milk and a dozen mixed donuts to share between them. He kept smacking Klaus’s hands away while everyone else placed their orders. Seven was soft; she gave him a raspberry filled donut and was rewarded with flowery words of appreciation. An hour into their visit, the table was constantly shushing itself and roaring with laughter in regular intervals. His ribs ached a bit from all the laughter and good-natured shoving involved in a round diner booth full of teenagers. Five was taking a breath from the excitement when he noticed a young girl enter the diner alone. He watched her sit at a table across the room, next to the jukebox. Diego’s leg shook the table for the next five minutes until he mumbled an excuse about the rest room. He darted into the men’s room, exiting and heading straight for the girl’s table. 

 

Five watched from his corner of the booth, putting his arm over Klaus’s and around Vanya to slump further into the seat. Diego introduced himself with fumbling lips and a firm handshake. He glanced towards his siblings; Five nonchalantly averted his eyes to seem like he was listening to Ben. When he looked back, his brother was sitting across from the girl with a careful smile. She wore a much happier expression as she pulled something from her coat pocket. Diego held out his hands – on her command, it looked like – and she dropped the item into them. He held up a gray rabbit’s foot, plush fur caught between Diego’s scarred and calloused fingertips. 

 

Surprise filled Five. It looked like this was the brother that found his soulmate. Diego looked around the diner, settling his gaze on the waitress refilling the old men’s coffees and chatting. He pulled from his own pocket a sheathed knife, one of the dozens he had, and passed it to the girl. She blushed prettily and tucked a stand of hair that had fallen from her ponytail behind her ear. Her eyes were soft as she hid the blade in her lap to unsheathe it, running a thumb over the edge of a small, gray blade. The knife wasn’t more than four or five inches long, with a solid looking blade and handle wrapped in white cord. Five could picture a matching knife stretching up her forearm, just like he knew the rabbit’s foot was painted across Diego’s wrist. 

 

He turned back to the noisy table before him. Luther met his gaze and then looked down to the golden heart peeking out from his sleeve. Then he looked to Five’s right hand, stretched between Vanya and Klaus. Five used his left hand to raise his glass of milk, giving his brother a bitter smile and waiting for him to toast their misery across the table. 

 

Luther’s orange juice clinked his own and he thought maybe he wasn’t much better than the others after all. Maybe their struggles and aptitudes weren’t so pathetic compared to his own. 

 

They all walked home together, once Diego had slipped back into the booth and deflected an offhanded question from Allison. He watched the girl, his soulmate apparently, leave minutes before the Hargreeves. Five hoped they could keep contact without Reginald finding out. He walked home with Vanya on his arm hoping the same for them. Luther walked halfway home before he closed the space between himself and Allison to hold her hand, and Five knew damn well he was hoping the same thing. 

 

It was a nice night, and Five felt oddly close to his teammates for it. 

 

 *****  

 

The following morning was routine. There were no giddy ideas of plans for sneaking out tonight, no jumps into Vanya’s room, no cigarettes or joints snuck before breakfast. They would have their morning meal and await their father’s arrival in the main sitting room. He would greet them, inspect them for obvious injury or issue, and usher them onto their lessons. 

 

And so it went. Five enjoyed his morning lessons, private work with Pogo on the mathematics behind temporal manipulation. He had spent the last weeks asking carefully structured questions that didn’t quite focus on what he wanted to attempt but reached near enough they had useful answers. Pogo answered him with enough thought that Five knew he was suspicious. However, the doctor hadn’t asked him outright or even in a covert way about Five’s idea, so he figured Pogo was relatively in the dark about it. If he had taken his curiosities to Father, there had been no sign. 

 

It wouldn’t matter soon. 

 

Lunch was quiet. Their father didn’t attend, but the children weren’t pushing any boundaries in the first few hours of his return. Mom sent them off to the physical part of their training with promises of cookies in the afternoon. When Five had finished up with the mile run, an agility focused work out, and several laps in the pool, chocolate chip cookies made the house smell like heaven. He rushed changing out of his swimsuit, letting it slap wetly onto the bathroom floor instead of in the hamper. Sparing a thought to pick it up later, he jumped straight to the kitchen and immediately dropped into his designated chair.

 

Seven was swinging her legs back and forth in her own seat, staring at him with amusement. Her eyes glittered at him, half hidden behind her long bangs. The rest of her hair was tied into a plait straight down her back. It started at the base of her neck and worked together with the stiff collars of their uniforms to hide her soulmark. While she avoided the pool, she took part in their mile run before leaving for her own, less intense physical exercises she did with Mom. Vanya once shared with him that Mom favored alternating yoga and strength training but she wasn’t a pushy instructor, simply firm. 

 

That sounded much better than Father using Luther to demonstrate what the rest of them should be doing, from routines to weightlifting to obstacle courses. Five hated following orders from both of them at the same damn time. Luther may have been decent over the last few days, but their father’s homecoming changed all that. He was the perfect soldier – drill-worthy orders, perfect posture, near knees-to-chest enthusiasm for the workout. It was sickening. Five’s ribs ached and he deserved chocolate chip cookies. 

 

He wondered if they would be good with a cup of coffee. The last few donut shop visits had endeared him to the smell, and he imagined the caffeine would be an interesting advantage to his studying. Next time, Five decided, next time he would order a cup. 

 

Mom placed a full plate of the promised goods on the table before him. He and Vanya reached for the oven-warm cookies at the same time. They shared a quick smile and rearranged themselves into being quiet acquaintances, neither sparing more than a few comments with their equally quiet siblings throughout the time they spent together in the kitchen. They parted ways without communicating again. Five’s ribs were on fire as he climbed the stairs to the library to study until dinner. He missed Seven. 

 

 *****  

 

Studying was his priority in the library. His siblings weren’t there to distract him – not when it was time for private lessons. Five spent his  _privately_ , secluded in a corner desk with a stack of books, graph and college ruled and printer paper being used in intervals. 

 

Luther would be downstairs in the gym, pushing himself to an ever-growing limit. Diego in a cellar-like room full of targets, knife after knife leaving his hands, curving and diving and piercing. They were the two most vocal about their training. Stories of new records and impressive feats were common around the breakfast table on cheery days. Allison had let it slip just once, with no small amount of pride, that Father oversaw her lessons. Five had no doubt it was true. Klaus and Ben were silent on their private hours, but he took note none of the talkative siblings had Mom or Pogo around. And he never saw them during his long hours in the library. He didn’t even see them on the occasional wander through the house when he grew frustrated with his studying. 

 

He wasn’t focused on his siblings at the moment, not even Vanya. His mind was fully submersed in the proposal he would give his father later tonight. Reginald stated firmly he wouldn’t allow Five to time travel. Seven had brought up the point that even if he managed to successfully jump forward or backward, he still didn’t know how to return. That was a valid point, he’d conceded, but still hadn’t felt comfortable enough with his new plan to explain it. After hours spent on the math, he felt confident. Five carefully cultivated his condensed studies into an organized folder to present to Reginald; the Hargreeves patriarch was fond on precision and concision. 

 

He hadn’t listened about time travel, but maybe Five had jumped the gun. This was a smaller step, a smarter step. It was more useful in battle on a novice level. Surely Father would appreciate that if nothing else. 

 

Five closed his books, put away his things, and gathered focus in his hands to make his way to dinner. Best not be late. 

 

 *****  

 

Dinner consisted of clinking silverware and the droning record player. Even he didn’t interrupt the obedient silence tonight. Klaus seemed upsettingly sober for once, eyes hard and fingers tense when gripping anything. Five watched him clench his teeth and push his food around for minutes at a time. Diego didn’t make a sound. He seemed happy though, even with a new cut bandaged on his collar. That was of interest to Five, but this was no time to ask for the story. 

 

The children were dismissed. The plates were cleared as they were filed away to begin getting ready for bed. Five, with his newly numbed ribs, took the stairs to his room. He laid out his pajamas, knowing the closest showers would be occupied for some time. The one he favored, on the fifth floor with a spacious shower and double sinks, would be his choice for later. He gathered his work and jumped to the hallway outside Sir Reginald’s office. 

 

Hargreeves would be in there, writing away and not looking up at whatever dared interrupt him unless it was absolutely necessary. 

 

Five would show him the importance of this. Not only was it a new direction, a new way to exercise his power and learn about his abilities, but it was a compromise. This was Five saying, _I’ll stop talking about time travel if you’ll work with this_. It was an end to an argument, bowing out on his father’s orders. 

 

He knocked on the doors before him. 

 

“Enter!” 

 

The doors closed behind him and he started by unceremoniously tossing the folder onto his father’s boat sized desk. 

 

He decided to be direct. Bluntness was the language Hargreeves spoke best, after all. “I don’t want to work on time travel anymore. There are too many unknown factors for me to be fully comfortable jumping time for now. You were right.” Those were the hardest words Five would force himself to say tonight, but they’re what made Reginald finally pause his pen. His father’s eyes moved to the folder in front of him without a word said. “But I am interested in something else.” 

 

“And what is this new idea of yours, Number Five?” Reginald moved sharply, leaning back in his chair and picking up the collection of notes without looking at his son or the contents. 

 

Five sat down. This would be a submissive move on his part, yes, but it wouldn’t be without negotiation. Reginald was a strict man with a tendency to demand control of the Academy’s powers to alarming rates. They scarcely breathed off schedule. “I still think time manipulation is the field I should focus on, though not jumping through it. If I have the power to  _manipulate_ time as well as space, it shouldn’t just be limited to moving through them, right?” 

 

The man across from him said nothing, only nodded once. 

 

“I want to learn to  _manipulate_ time, then. I’ve started gathering notes on the possible ways to slow, hypothetically even freeze, fast forward, and rewind time. If I can learn to bend space to my will to teleport wherever I want to go, I can bend time to my will. This isn’t as large an undertaking as jumping would be. And it has many  potential  uses in battle, long range and short range, defensive, offensive, preventive! Diego can deflect oncoming projectiles from himself, but I could freeze oncoming projections to protect  _anyone_. A few extra moments to get away from a close shot, go back a minute or two and avoid a mistake! There are so many possibilities if I study and master this.” 

 

“I didn’t think you would so easily abandon the idea of time travel.” He looked at Five, unreadable and tapping his fingers against his thigh. “What changed your mind?” 

 

“Attempting to time travel without full expertise on the matter is dangerous. I’m not inclined to die choking on my pride. And the team would be useless without me.” 

 

Five didn’t know which of the statements he gave his father would believe, but he knew he couldn’t give all the other reasons. He couldn’t tell his father he was scared of leaving Vanya, worried for what his forced family would become if they continued down the path their father was dragging them down. There needed to be changes made. Five was taking the steps to make them, starting now, in this office. 

 

“We start Monday. I’ll have Pogo work over the weekend to start a lesson plan and discuss the proper formulas you’ll need to begin working with. If your research isn’t useless, it should be fine. Dismissed, Number Five.” 


	6. No one 'round here's good at keeping their eyes closed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Success and secrets, questions and confusion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter introduces an element from the comics, which I've not read. Browsing the wiki, I found this interesting fact that I wish came into play into the shows. What better place for it than my fanfiction? Sorry for the lack of Fiveya interactions, but there's plenty going on here. Let me know what you guys think of this progression!
> 
> Chapter title from Lorde.

Three months were spent perfecting the math behind Five’s newest plan. He and Pogo labored, argued, and scrapped half-finished works in the doctor’s study for hours on end. Pogo’s windowsill was the closest he got to nature for days at a time; he skipped lessons, meals, exercises. Only missions were sure to pull him away – though not without ink stained fingers and a perpetual headache. 

 

Admittedly, Five was not working so hard out of pure diligence. He wanted to expand and explore his powers, that was true, but not quite to the extent he let people think. While everyone only saw an ambitious, neurotic mess, Five was hiding his true motives. Time manipulation was the first step towards his eventual goal of time travel. Perfecting this small branch of time manipulation (freezing and slowing time, to start) would give him an excellent leg up in learning his ultimate goal. Hours spent studying and working on the formulas necessary also distracted him from missing Vanya. The days were long when they couldn’t speak, and frequent. Were he to focus on their forced distance, Five would only grow angry and have nowhere to direct his emotions. Buried in equations and formulas, he didn’t think about his secret soulmate. Any time he used working was time he didn’t waste moping or getting himself into trouble. It was for the better. 

 

He was sitting in the fifth-floor bathroom, surrounded by the same coral colored walls for the last three hours. A mess of graph paper, textbooks, and nearly incomprehensible notes covered the majority of the floor and counter space in the room. Five was sitting fully clothed in the bathtub. His legs were crossed, elbows on his knees and fingers steepled together before his pursed lips. Before him, the faucet dripped at a slow but steady pace. 

 

His eyes flicked between the faucet and the clock, haphazardly placed under the showerhead earlier that day. It ticked continuously. For the sixty ticks a clock made in a minute, the faucet before him dripped 32 times. 

 

All of the paper and minutes wasted up until this moment brought him here, counting waterdrops. 

 

Five reached out, hands on either side of the dripping water. He concentrated, a darker blue than usual sparking at his fingertips, and felt sweat beading at his temple in no time. This was already the furthest he’d gotten. He listened to the clock and counted the seconds; he watched the tub and counted the drops. The navy sparks grew in number, dancing around his hands the more energy he poured into the attempt. 

 

He counted thirty seconds and sixteen drops of water. 

 

Sighing in frustration, he doubled the energy behind his efforts. The sparks nearly gloved his hands, there were so many, only small glimpses of his pale skin flickering through their movement. Sparks began dancing from his hands into the open air. The outline of a sphere was barely visible – shaping for milliseconds before disappearing. Five felt a migraine coming on with the intensity of his concentration, the beaded sweat at his temple running along the side of his face. The sphere tried to form again. 

 

The doorknob rattled and Five glanced that way in irritation. As he did, the energy between his hands shot outwards, blowing up in his face and knocking him on his ass. Five cursed and kicked the faucet controls to turn it off. Hands gripping either side of the tub, he pulled up and hauled himself out of the bathtub to reach the door. He yanked it open with a scowl, ready to scold whoever was interrupting his studies. The sight of Mom on the other side quieted him. Reluctantly. 

 

“Your father wants you to attend dinner tonight, Five. He says you’ve been skipping too many meals with the family.” Mom looked at him with her kind eyes, worry etched in the wrinkles beside them. “Dinner tonight will be roasted lamb and potatoes, with carrots, peas, and a cherry cobbler afterwards. Dinner will be ready in forty-two minutes.” 

 

“I’ll be there, Mom. Thank you.” 

 

She laid a hand on his arm affectionately, smiling and taking her leave to finish preparing dinner. 

 

He closed the door, leaning his forehead against it in defeat when the lock had clicked into place. That was the most progress he had made in practical applications of his time-freezing theory. Five figured that the more stable he could get the sphere of energy, the more successful his attempts would be, but it was draining as hell to do what he had done so far. It seemed to be a technical issue as much as a stamina issue. Eyes closed, he slumped against the door for the majority of his time before dinner, thinking. The most logical step would be to continue practicing. His abilities would undoubtedly grow stronger the longer he used them. At least, that was the course they took with his spatial jumping. Small, short jumps at first. Now he could transport multiple people at once, take himself across states, make numerous short jumps with barely a pause between them. Ideally, he would learn to stop time for short moments, lengthen that ability, and then concentrate on slowing time instead of point-blank stopping it. But how long would that take? He and Vanya (and the others) had turned fifteen just weeks ago. That left him three more years in the Hargreeves household, suffering and suffocating under their father. That left Vanya three more years here, three more years they were hiding and hoping no one found out. How long could they keep up this façade, really? It was luck as much as diligence that kept her soulmark from being seen. Scarves, a faked disinterest in pools, the lack of human affection in their home, and deliberately long hair were temporary defenses, he knew. One of his siblings could find out their secret just as easily as their father. And his siblings, the forced family and world-renowned superhero team they had been molded into, how long could they last under their father’s thumb? Klaus was already cracking; Diego developed an inferiority complex heavy enough to crush him; Ben had withdrawn into himself, escaping in the pages of whatever novel he got his hands on. The entirety of his family was a ticking time bomb, and Five was so sure that the sooner he learned to freeze time, the sooner he could disable it. 

 

Did he have the time to do this the right way? 

 

He collected every notebook and scrap paper littering the counters and floors. He arranged them hurriedly but neatly, tucked them into his leather messenger bag and locked the clasp with exhausted ceremony. This was the beginning of his life’s work, numbers and graphs the accumulation of his work so far, and he would succeed with it. No matter the cost. Carefully, he lay the bag next to one of the double sinks. Five approached the other one and ran his fingers around the porcelain rim. 

 

The reflection before him wasn’t quite worrying, but he’d seen better days. Dark rings outlined his eyes. The green in them shone brightly, the manic glint of a cornered animal. Mom was right about one thing – he had been missing too many meals. His cheekbones were sharper than before. Even his perfectly tailored uniform wasn’t quite right anymore; the waistband of his shorts sagged over his hipbones now. With the amount of energy he was expelling in these practice sessions, it was no wonder he had lost weight. He’d have to be more careful, watch his own bad habits, to make sure he didn’t sabotage his own work by being too tired or malnourished. Five would have to do better. 

 

He hands gripped the sink even tighter and he closed his eyes to the man with self-loathing etched into his features, staring at him as long as he dared to look. 

 

So many nights he’d spent hiding from the world in this bathroom, located on a floor most of the household only visited while traveling to the next or previous floor. The path to it involved a maze of hallways and a hundred door ways. But not for Five. For Five, the spacious bathroom with a sturdy lock and guaranteed privacy was no more out of the way than any other in the house. He used it for general hiding, be it from Father or his teammates, as well as lengthy showers. Half the time, he wasn’t even present for the shower. It ran and ran and ran, steaming the mirror and creating static noise. Five had better things to do. He visited the library, Vanya, schools, malls, parks, wherever he wanted to go for half an hour. But the other half of the time, he hid under the shower spray and let the steam, the heat, the water, take away his rage and soothe his pains. He washed the blood from his hands and his wounds. He thought of a better life, where he would step out of the shower and into something so perfect it had to be a dream. He released tension that seeped back in the moment the water was gone, because no one else could see him so bare. 

 

Five opened his eyes. Still avoiding the mirror, he washed his face and his hands. He grabbed the hand towel, pale pink and soft as a cloud, and buried his face in it. The water was dried from his face, then his hands, and finally he just held the towel. His chest was tight even though the pain from his ribs were long gone. 

 

Down the hall, he could hear a pair of feet taking the stairs in a rush. He opened the laundry hamper long enough to toss in the hand towel he still held. Dinner would be starting soon and he had a schedule to keep. 

 

*****

 

Five jumped to the kitchen, smirking when his arrival startled Klaus enough to make him throw the butter knife in his hands halfway across the table. His brother was in a silk robe. The makings of a Scooby-worthy sandwich rambled before him – vegetables, meat, fruits, condiments, cheeses, chips, and more. Klaus appropriately had a blunt tucked behind his ear, half-hidden by his shaggy hair. Five could guess his plans. 

 

He paced around the table, eyeing Klaus with a knowing look, taking the long way to the double pantries. “Good morning, Klaus. What brings you here in the middle of the night?” 

 

“Pre-gaming my snacks, little brother. And you?” He returned Five’s gaze with wariness but never dishonesty. 

 

Five’s smile grew a little less sharp, a bit more teasing. He opened the door to one pantry, plucking peanut butter and marshmallow fluff from the shelves. Most of the Hargreeves children had snuck downstairs earlier in the week, meeting at midnight for hot chocolate and talking about the trick or treating other kids did the night before. It wasn’t the worst Halloween he remembered, made all the better by the genuine enjoyment he found in spending time with his siblings. The good memory cost him the last of the mini-marshmallows that he also liked with his sandwiches – but it was a small price to pay. 

 

The table space across from Klaus was empty, now that the knife was back in hand. Five dumped his jars there and reached for the bread his brother had abandoned a long time ago if the mountain of toppings he’d assembled was anything to go by. He jumped to the silverware drawer, procured his own knife and a spoon, and jumped back. 

 

Klaus huffed, drawing Five’s gaze from the peanut butter jar to his brother. He raised a brow in response to the sound. “It’s just like, still, totally unsettling,” Klas said, “to watch you do that unexpectedly. In a fight, sure. But in the kitchen? Different situation.” 

 

“You talk to the dead,” Five deadpanned. He plopped a few spoons piled high with marshmallow fluff onto his half-finished snack. “If anyone should be unsettled by the other’s powers, I think it would be me.” 

 

Under Five’s watchful eye, Klaus pursed his lips and fumbled with a bag of sour cream and chive potato crisps. He crunched a handful over a layer of mustard on the sandwich while avoiding his brother’s look. “Yeah, well, if the whispers in the halls are true, you’re about to be able to freeze time. That’s a little more unsettling than asking Grandma where she put the deed to the house, I think.” Klaus had mustered a grin for the joke, but it was too forced to mean anything. 

 

“Mastery is achieved when ‘telling time’ becomes ‘telling time what to do,’” Five quoted sagely. He didn’t say anything else about his brother’s powers. But he did wonder why there were cobwebs in his hair, where he had been at dinner and lunch today. 

 

“You’ve always been very into telling people what to do.” Klaus looked thoughtful for a moment, then a true grin spread across his face. “The one thing you and Luther have in common, I guess.” 

 

“Klaus. Don’t kill my appetite.” 

 

His brother laughed, under his breath but with mirth. He popped the last few chips into his mouth and chewed them noisily. The entire time he was watching Five as he finished his sandwich by cutting it in two neat triangles. “Gonna stay up all night getting into it with the chalkboard?” 

 

“Ran out of chalk for the night,” he joked. “I needed some extra calories before bed. I’ve been practicing too much, not eating enough. Something I definitely don’t have in common with Luther,” Five said, smirking. 

 

“Hell no. That boy could eat a horse in one go, I swear.” Klaus giggled and wiped the chip crumbs from his hands, gathering his plated sandwich and a couple bottles of water. “So, I’m planning on smashing this sandwich and smoking this blunt out on the fire escape. If you aren’t going back to class, Professor Five...” 

 

He let the sentence trail off there, and Five wasn’t surprised by this. Klaus was plenty bold in the first half of his question. They were forced to do things as a team, occasionally did things as siblings, but he and Klaus never spent time as  _brothers_ – one on one. “I’m not sure you can finish that sandwich, but I’m sure I’ll enjoy watching you try.” 

 

Klaus laughed, loud and excited; Five grabbed his plate and grinned back. He hesitated for just a second, chest tight at the thought, before moving to stand beside his brother. Klaus started babbling about the _sweet, sweet strain of Indica_ they would be smoking in a few minutes. Five nodded, listening attentively. He put a hand on his brother’s sleeve. The silk was a deep royal purple and rippled like water under his fingers. It suited Klaus, in its flamboyancy and fluidity. Five took a deep breath and answered Klaus’s questioning look with a wicked smirk. 

 

He jumped them to the fire exit outside his room, laughing and slapping a hand over Klaus’s mouth as soon as they landed. 

 

* 

 

The four and a half hours that Five managed to sleep was the best he’d slept in quite a while. That probably had a lot to do with the weed, he mused, but also with the company he’d kept. Klaus was decent – a little too vulgar, oddly skittish, but he had a hidden compassionate side, too. They laughed and talked until there was nothing but crumbs and a filter left of their indulgences. Five enjoyed every minute. His brother thrived under the positive interaction like a plant under a sunlamp. Only in Vanya had Five seen that same thirst for affection, and it softened him a bit further towards Klaus. 

 

Overlooking his siblings hadn’t gotten him as far as their father promised; Five had barely brushed the surface of his powers at fifteen. How far could he advance with real teamwork and connections between them? He planned to find out.  

  

There was a chance for Vanya to benefit from this, too, and she would. 

 

Five was grateful for the decent rest he got, as well as the full breakfast Mom laid out for them in the morning and the equally large lunch that followed later. While the rest of his siblings went about their normal schedules, Five holed himself up in the fifth floor bathroom. 

 

He was better prepared, today. The sleeves of his shirt were rolled up and his tie and jacket discarded on the back of the toilet; he was more relaxed, sharper in the face of a challenge with less tension than yesterday. There was a box of granola bars and a jug of lemonade on the counter. Lack of energy wouldn’t be a problem this time, he vowed. Nor would disorganization or lack of attention to finer details. All of his notes were laid out on the half of the bathroom floor he didn’t need to walk on, categorized by the order of the steps he thought he should be taking. 

 

Today, he would freeze time. 

 

And he did, on the forty-second trial of the day. 

 

Five allowed himself a break every ten trials, though he wasn’t usually making attempt after attempt. There was plenty of time in between each trial for either referencing or editing his notes. But breaks were important, after the way he had been working. Five drank a glass of the lemonade and ate a granola bar after the first ten. The second ten landed him close enough to lunch to pause his work until after the meal. He drank two glasses of lemonade after the thirtieth mark; a bottle of water and a granola bar finished off his fourth group of trials. He even chatted briefly with Pogo in the kitchen for a bit when he retrieved his water. When he crossed his legs and cupped his hands around the empty air under the faucet for attempt number forty-one, he had a good feeling. 

 

The feeling was crushed by the results of his trial. Barely the outline of a sphere, when multiple times this morning he’d already held a fully formed sphere for seconds at a time. 

 

His emotions about trial forty-two were dimmed, but he would keep on nonetheless. 

 

Sparks danced from his hands and came together. A solid sphere took shape, about four inches in diameter and thin enough to be nearly transparent. The top barely encircled the mouth of the faucet and the bottom was directly beneath it. Five watched a water droplet form, fall, and dissipate as it hit the sphere sparking under it. He flexed his fingers. The sphere grew the slightest bit, glowing the strange blue of this particular spatial energy, and another water drop took form. It dripped from the rim of the faucet, plummeting towards its inevitable death. 

 

Until it didn’t. 

 

Five thought his heart would stop, too, watching the water drop stuck in one spot. No others were taking shape and it wasn’t falling. 

 

It wasn’t fucking falling! 

 

He fought to keep his focus, half celebratory and half dire need to keep it together. The clock ticked for six, seven, eight seconds. Five was sweating. His hands would be cramping soon, if the way the tension he felt in them now was any indication. When the ninth second passed, the energy between his hands flickered. On the tenth, it disappeared. The water drop fell with three more following from the faucet in quick succession. 

 

Five was panting. It was the same amount of exertion as maybe three or four of his average-distance jumps – all for ten seconds. That didn’t bode well for a quick path to mastering this skill. But he stopped time. Five laughed hard, head thrown back, eyes and mouth wide open. The future was wide open for him, with this little victory. He had a foot in the door and plans to bring the whole building down. He didn’t even bother getting out of the tub before jumping to Pogo’s study, just barely taking the time to stand so that he wouldn’t land on his ass. 

 

Normally, Five was more respectful of Dr. Pogo’s privacy and preferred to knock. While it was obvious that he was literally their father’s creature, Five knew Pogo didn’t mean them harm. He would never actively work against Sir Reginald, maybe he was even unable to work against his master, but he had enough of his own personality to quietly disagree with some of their father’s methods and choices. 

 

He didn’t knock in his excitement, merely appeared right before the desk Pogo was usually working at this time of the day.  But Pogo was nowhere to be seen. The plants were the only life in the airy study, and they wouldn’t care about Five’s breakthrough. 

 

Five looked around the office, feeling vexed. It was possible Pogo was helping Reginald, or even one of the other children with their lessons, but in the kitchen earlier he’d mentioned a large amount of lesson planning he’d be doing today. Which would mean he’d be holed up in his study until it was time to retire, he’d joked, but apparently that wasn’t the case. The only sign that Pogo had been there at all today was a half empty mug of tea and a leather notebook splayed open on the desk. Five glanced at the pages with mild curiosity. It was possible he’d get a glimpse at one of his sibling’s future studies or exercises. Instead, he saw his own name in Pogo’s looping script. 

 

An obligatory glance was sent to the door, but it wasn’t like Five didn’t have the best escape plan handy at all times. He plucked the notebook from the desk and read through the open page without bothering to sit. The first passage was an update on his studies into time manipulation; it was logical Pogo would notate the children’s studies, as he was mostly in charge of the finer details. He skimmed the fairly positive words on his choice in direction and the fervor he applied himself to the task with. The other half of the page, and a few lines of the next, had nothing to do with his work. 

 

Pogo wrote about his interactions with the other children. Mostly, he pointed out Five’s recent, small pushes to do things as a full group – all seven of them, not just a few or the Academy members only. There were comments about his new closeness to Number Four, a thicker tolerance of Number One, impatience directed at Number Three. Any major interactions between him and his siblings from the last week were covered in the notebook. Details Pogo shouldn’t have any business making  _literal_ note of. He flipped the pages back, seeing notes on each and every one of them in a similar fashion. First, an update on their powers, then any news on their behavior. Klaus’s drug use was mentioned frequently, along with Diego’s anger and self-isolation. Vanya’s updates were about her school studies and then her social life – or lack thereof. None of her passages had a trace of Five’s name apart from his attempts to unite all of them. He breathed a sigh of short relief amidst the seething this documentation of his family produced. 

 

Five flipped all the way back to the beginning, noting the date was nearly a year after Reginald had bought them and brought them all home. Fourteen years of spying on them, helping their father pit them against one another, noting which relationships caused weakness and which caused newfound strengths. His hands shook as he read Pogo’s initial impressions and the barest facts of the kids. 

 

Of course, Luther was first.  _Number One:_   _Born October 1_ _st_ _, 1989, in Bremen, Germany. Born to a schoolteacher and auto repair mechanic. Blonde hair, blue eyes. A healthy, strong boy of ten months. Powers seem to be superior physical strength – resulting in the need for careful observation when he is with the other children. The first to have his powers manifest. Obedient, calm, strives to please both the nannies and Sir Reginald. Seems to prefer Nanny Margaery, and takes comfort in the presence of his biological and fraternal twin, Number Five, when he is angry or upset._

 

Five stared at the words without seeing them, seeing nothing but them. He and Luther were twins? Real, blood brothers – and they had no idea. 

 

He found the last page written on, the most current update on himself, and laid the notebook where it was before he entered the room. It obviously wasn’t meant for his eyes. Five’s stomach felt like a pit of snakes and he didn’t know how to feel about this new information. He needed time, needed space, to process what the hell he’d just read. 

 

Closing his eyes, he jumped to the library. It was an hour until dinner; no one should be around. He prowled the shelves in an anxious attempt to burn off his energy. Walking was nothing compared to jumping, but he didn’t have the focus for the numerous, rapid transportations he’d need to make to feel better. Five brushed his hand along the spines of the psychology section and tried evening his breaths. Three more aisles and it worked well enough. He rounded the corner for the fourth aisle and ran directly into Allison and Luther, browsing the physiology books. 

 

Allison and his twin brother, browsing the physiology books. 

 

They all stared at each other in a hushed awkwardness, as though he’d interrupted a silent conversation they were having. Five searched Luther’s face with intent; like a man in the desert looking for water, he scanned for any trace of a similarity to his own features. Their ears, the set of their eyes, the fullness of their lips, even their coloring was noticeably different. Only the straight, long nose they both sported jumped out at him as a common feature. The shape of Luther’s jaw wasn’t as angular as his own, but maybe if his head weren’t so wide, they would appear the same. 

 

He couldn’t reconcile written word with reality, but why would Pogo write such a strange lie with his otherwise meticulous documentations? 

 

“Can we help you?” Allison finally asked, shattering the silence Five had been drowning in. 

 

“No, I was just working.” He stepped around the pair without looking at them again. With false concentration, he scanned the shelf next to them until he plucked the supposed necessary book from its spot. Five glanced in his siblings’ direction and nodded a farewell, disappearing before they could react. 

 

* 

 

His feet hit the ground a few inches inside Vanya’s doorway. The light was off, the curtain half drawn, the room empty. Vanya wasn’t here; Five didn’t know where else she would be at the moment, and didn’t have the energy to go search her out. He stepped out of his shoes and tossed the book he’d grabbed on Seven’s desk. Five closed the curtain fully. The room was encased in darkness. He felt a headache he hadn’t noticed recede as he made his way towards Vanya’s bed. When he reached to pull the blankets back, the telltale glow of his strange soulmark acting up caught his attention. 

 

Five sighed. “Any other surprises?” he asked the empty room. 

 

All he wanted to do was climb into Vanya’s bed, pretend she would be there with him soon, and sleep until she found him there. He’d eaten both breakfast and lunch with the rest of the family, skipping dinner wouldn’t be inexcusable. But if his mark was lighting up, that meant Seven’s was, too. 

 

He prepared himself for a series of jumps to her most visited rooms, already exhausted by whatever was to come.


	7. Remember everything will be alright

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lies discussed in the library, twins talk about teamwork, and a storm appears in the sound room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am floored by the sweet comments I continue to get from you guys, and the crazy amounts of kudos and bookmarks. Thanks for all of the kind support. The response to this fic - my first big writing project in a long while - has helped to keep me inspired and interested in the story developing from my little one-shot. I hope you like what's to come.
> 
> Chapter title from Harry Styles.
> 
> Also, I'm tentatively looking for a beta, if anyone is interested.

Vanya wasn’t in the kitchen, just Mom humming and checking the oven. Nor was she in the music room, the den, or her favorite sitting room. Each jump left him more anxious than the last. He finally found her in another library, less frequented and in a rarely used part of the house. Seven liked it for the huge fireplace on the west-facing wall, framed by twin windows that bathed the room in every shade of the sunset. The sofas were plush and the maps covering the walls were interesting. It was a cozy place to hide away – and apparently, Vanya’s current hiding spot. 

 

She was bent over a textbook and a few scattered worksheets on one of the large oak tables, dark hair curtaining her face and falling over her soulmark. As he got closer, he could still see a faint glow beneath the bit of hair covering the nape of her neck. It made his mark tingle. He reached a hand to cover it. 

 

The moment his fingers touched the mark, Vanya’s head snapped up and craned to see him over the half-height shelves he walked past. “Five, what’s wrong?” 

 

“Do you know where the others are right now? We need to talk.” 

 

“The rest of the Academy should be finishing up lessons soon, Five, it’s an hour before dinner. They’ll be going to wash up. It was gym day. Pogo and Father have been locked in Father’s lab for a while.” She blinked heavily, moved the book away. “What happened?” 

 

“I jumped into Pogo’s study, but he wasn’t there. He’d left a journal on his desk, nice leather and obviously old. I saw my name written on the page it was open to. So, I read it. And I learned that our loving father,” he spat, “has been keeping secrets I never would have guessed at. The journal was a log, documenting our growth and development in schooling as well as with the other children. Everything! From the first time I ever jumped to the last time I talked to Klaus! Before that, too. It talks about all of us at just ten months old, drooling and tossing blocks at each other. But Pogo also notated where we were from, the family we were born into.” 

 

He didn’t know how to say it. Vanya stared at him, half turned towards him in her chair with patient curiosity in her eyes. Five put a hand atop hers, resting on the desk, and sighed. This wouldn’t change things between them, of course not. For a heart-stopping moment earlier, he’d wondered if he and Vanya were also of blood-relation. That was ridiculous, of course. There was no way they were all kin. Vanya had never felt like his sister before, just another lonely soul trapped in the same house. Nonetheless, he resolved to quiet his preposterous fears the next chance he got. He’d read that journal cover to cover the moment he got the chance. There must be quite a few more secrets to unearth from its pages, after all. 

 

“I was born in Bremen, Germany, to a working-class married woman. So was Luther. We’re fraternal twins, according to Pogo’s journal.” 

 

When Vanya placed her other hand over his own, he realized he was shaking. It was minute, but it was there. She gaped in quiet disbelief. Then, she huffed and it nearly sounded like a laugh. “That makes sense, in a strange way. Brains and brawn split into two twin boys who can’t stand each other most of the time? Cosmic irony, Five.” 

 

He laughed at the pure absurdity of his situation. How had it come to this? Five had the ability to bend time and space to his will, a secret twin brother, and a soulmate bond with unheard of properties. There were kids his age playing basketball, drinking beer, or writing essays. Yet, here he was. 

 

“Do you think I should tell Luther?” He sat down on the table beside her. There wasn’t much more time for them to hide away, may as well get to the point. Five pulled his legs on to the table and crossed them, pushing Seven’s studies away and resting his elbows in his knees. 

 

“Luther puts Father’s praise above everything. There’s a big chance he’d simply say you’re lying and run right to his office. If he told Luther it wasn’t true, he certainly wouldn’t believe you over Father.” Vanya looked thoughtful before continuing, “But he’s been loosening up. Sometimes he talks to me even when Allison is around, which she hates, of course.” Her big brown eyes dropped down to her lap. 

 

The knowledge that Vanya was still only tentatively accepted by the de facto “leaders” of the kids still burned away at him. Klaus and Ben included Vanya more openly than he did, at least in front of their father or Pogo. Seven had whispered to him weeks ago with a full grin that Diego was thinking about learning to play the guitar; she had hopes for future collaborations. Allison was frosty to over half of them, only truly kind to Luther and Ben. Allison’s soulmate was another story. Since Luther was so fond of his role as leader, he tried to forge a personal connection with every member of the Academy. These attempts were usually shallow and one-sided. But Five tried to give credit where credit was due – Luther made attempts, poor as they may be. He grudgingly admired that about his brother. 

 

Their father was behind the stand-offish behavior of the others. Their father was behind the lie by omission that warped his entire worldview. Reginald damn Hargreeves ruined his life for too long. Five would be changing that, taking control of the path he walked. Without the good press the Umbrella Academy brought, what was Sir Reginald Hagreeves? An eccentric billionaire who insulted children in public, risking their lives for his paranoid fantasies of apocalyptic dooms. If he was alone in his big house, surrounded by nothing but cobwebs and academic memorabilia, then he would be even less. 

 

He would be nothing; he would be ordinary. 

 

Vanya was still talking to him, soothing quiet words he wasn’t hearing, too lost in his own head. Five looked down at her. Without the Umbrella Academy, Reginald would be everything he ever forced Vanya to feel she was. He was eager to see everything taken from their father – and even more eager to be the one behind it all. 

 

* 

 

Five never spared a thought for his possible parent(s). As soon as he understood the circumstances of his birth, he figured,  _Why care for someone who never cared for me?_  They sold him; they weren’t here; they didn’t matter. He didn’t spend time comparing the family he was raised in to what could have been. 

 

Today, that’s all he could think of. 

 

 _...a school teacher and an auto repair mechanic._  

 

He wondered if his mother was the schoolteacher, or maybe untraditionally the mechanic. He wondered about his father. Every Hargreeves child was born under incredibly unusual circumstances. There were theories that the children bred and born in minutes were something more – a strange parasite, insidious demons, even aliens. Five didn’t feel like an alien or a demon. Though, some days he hardly felt human. Humans were allowed more freedoms, had more attachments, lacked the raw power he could draw into his hands or Allison could whisper in the ears of strangers. Luther, Diego, Ben, Klaus, too... They were all something more than human. Their father, as well, he wasn’t ordinary despite a lack of powers. Five hesitated to think his father was entirely powerless; a gut instinct told him Reginald’s ordinary persona could be just that. Even Vanya was special. Her soulmark was a statistical improbability, the bond between their marks even more unlikely and mysterious. And there was something about her that drew Five in, captivated him like no one else. When she played, when she simply spoke to him, it was all mesmerizing. There was no such pull with anyone else. 

 

But with this...discovery, Luther being his twin, the knowledge that his parents gave them both away.  _Sold_ the both of them. Five was grappling with his self-control sitting at meals and lessons. Should he say something? To Luther, Pogo, or Reginald? Vanya was of the opinion he shouldn’t talk to Luther until Five was sure he was trustworthy, would even believe him. She had a decent point, he knew. However, there was a constant itch under his skin to do something. 

 

Five followed orders and followed his schedule. Any “free” time he had was to be spent attempting to freeze time; he hadn’t told anyone about his success yet. He sat in the bathroom and let the water drip. He continued to act snappish if interrupted, brought nourishment with him like he was working his ass off, even skipped the odd meal to keep up the appearance. 

 

In reality, all of the hours he’d spent hiding away over the last three days were wasted. Five sat slumped against a wall, in the tub, on the counter, imaging a woman with sandy hair and green eyes. He pictured his mother with Luther’s hair, patience, and love for 80’s pop music. Dancing around the front of a car, hood up and the engine in pieces. Maybe she would wear coveralls, tie her wavy hair up or braid it back.  She would have Five's eyes, though, and she gave him her sharp tongue, too.  Their father would be the school teacher; perhaps he teaches math and passed his skills onto Five, or gave Luther the love for space that their father shows with every lecture in his Astronomy class. He would have circles under his eyes, from sleepless nights spend grading papers and reading scientific journals. Five wondered if he pushed up his sleeves when he got in the zone. Was he a coffee drinker, a drunk? In the best scenarios, Five imagines a passionate man with lively blue eyes and neat black hair who has patience for his students and love for his wife. 

 

Those were only dreams, wishes, and thoughts. Any parents who could have claimed him at birth gave up that right, gave it to Reginald fucking Hargreeves. His parents weren’t here, but his brother was. A part of Five felt that meant something; it could be a chance to forge a true familial bond. There was also the part of him that knew Luther as he was – a big, commanding persona hiding a sniveling boy tugging at their father’s sleeve for attention. The root of the problem between them was their reactions to the indifference Hargreeves raised them with. Five accepted it. He did not have the power to force their father to change his ways, and refused to waste time attempting to meet his ridiculous standards. At times, he toed the line of being openly defiant. Luther reacted entirely differently. He would literally walk through fire (and has rushed through burning buildings) to earn their father’s approval. A blind, desperate soldier running to the front lines. It made Five sick to see the energy and effort wasted or shoved back in Luther’s face. He still didn’t waver in his useless pursuit, not once. The barest scraps of satisfaction from Reginald kept Number One fed for weeks at a time. 

 

Five rationalized that he couldn’t fathom Luther’s feelings towards their father, but if that were put aside... 

 

Luther was brave, strong, loyal, and headstrong. Five was cunning, intelligent, and ambitious. What a team they could make. Maybe Vanya wasn’t so far off in saying it made sense. 

 

He would take Seven’s advice and wait. With time, he’d have plenty of opportunities to study and bond with his brother. Five would tell him the truth – as soon as he knew Luther was trustworthy – and hope for the best when that time came. In the meantime, he made plans to sneak back into Pogo’s study and read the journal. He stood from his spot against the door. Five made his way to the sink and grabbed the binder containing roughly half of his notes on freezing time. Pulling pages from their sleeves and shuffling the pocket stuffed with graphs, he made the orderly notes look as though they’d been flipped-through and well-used throughout the day. Five ran a hand through his hair a few times, sat the binder down, turned the faucet to the closest sink on just enough to drip. His hands cupped near the mouth of the faucet, he started to summon the sphere of blue energy needed to manipulate time. 

 

The sphere formed on the third attempt and held for seven seconds. Five tried again, and again, and again. On the ninth attempt, he beat his record. It suspended the water for fifteen full seconds. He’d worked up a decent sweat and figured he looked disheveled enough to convince his father he’d been working for hours. 

 

Five grabbed the binder, tried to make his eyes look wild, and jumped to the door of his father’s office. There was no hesitation: he immediately pounded on the imposing door, coiling his body with impatience. Before Reginald had finished his order to enter, Five was stalking through the door to stand before his father’s desk. The binder skittered from his hands to the surface of the desk while he nearly walked into the edge, hands barely stopping him as they gripped white-knuckled to the wood. The anger at this man bubbling under his skin gave Five the edge he needed to seem so proud, so boastful, in his false, enthusiastic success. 

 

He bared his teeth to the man before him in a savagely pleased grin. “I did. I stopped time for fifteen seconds today, Father.” 

 

Reginald’s eyes never left the letter he was writing. “A decent beginning, Number Five, but I expect you will be improving the technique with time.” 

 

The mask dropped from his face, just as it would have done if the emotion in his eyes or width of his smile had been genuine. His pride in the accomplishment was real. His father’s disinterest didn’t diminish that, but it angered him. Five allowed the grin to become a sneer, the light in his eyes to become a fire. 

 

His lungs were burning with the effort of breathing in front of this man who ruined so much for him and everyone around them. “I’ll be sure to improve quickly, then,” he snapped, and then turned his heel and left without waiting for his father to dismiss or respond to him. 

 

Five changed his clothes and crawled into bed, research shoved in a drawer of his desk. 

 

* 

 

The Umbrella Academy filed into the den to await their father the next morning. Five had left Vanya in the library, where she would have lessons with Mom later this morning. They sat – one, two, three and four, five, six – on the twin couches, twin brothers not quite facing each other. Before any of them could start the chatter that would last until their father arrived, Five clear his throat. 

 

He faced all of his siblings with an air of pleased accomplishment, but not arrogance. He sat with one leg crossed, ankle atop his knee, and one arm on the back of the couch. Five allowed himself a softer smile than usual as he addressed them. “Yesterday, I succeeded in my newest experiment with time manipulation, freezing time.” 

 

Klaus clapped him on the shoulder several times in congratulations while Ben mentioned it was likely due to his single-minded determination. Five laughed, nodded at Diego’s mildly impressed applause. It felt good to have the admiration of his brothers. It may even have been a better feeling than the superiority he so recently felt over them, unmarred by bitter rivalry. He looked to Luther and Allison. They were ever the ideal team; he watched them exchange glances before giving their opinions on his developing power. Allison turned and gave him the same dazzling smile she gave the press. 

 

“What a cool new power you’ve discovered, Five,” she said. 

 

“I have hopes that it will come in handy for the team on future missions.” 

 

This drew Luther into the conversation with a look of surprised investment on his face. He leaned forward, disrupting his perfect posture and Allison’s barely polite disinterest. “You could do a lot with it. Stop bullets, freeze the enemy, buy us time. It may be one of the most valuable team defenses we’ve got.” 

 

“I agree,” Five said, when weeks ago (maybe days ago) he would have brushed his brother off or even mocked his one-track mind. “I’ll be working hard to use it in more flexible ways, mainly focusing on keeping my control for longer periods and expanding the area of control.” 

 

“If there’s anything I can help with, let me know.” The positive response from Five must have shaken Luther; he actually looked thoughtful and sincere towards his smaller – twin, Five thought wildly – brother. 

 

“Not yet, maybe after I’ve gotten better. Diego, though,” he said a little louder, drawing said brother’s attention, “will come in handy after I’ve learned a few new tricks. Throwing knives will be good practice for missions where I’m stopping bullets and punches. When I’m ready, the both of you could help me with freezing enemies in hand-to-hand situations.” 

 

A hint of excitement lingered in Diego’s eyes. While he was defiant towards their father for his neglect, Diego was surprisingly fond of training and new challenges. He would spend many of the hours reserved for private study in the gym or with the various obstacle courses that came and went with their rotation lessons. He avoided only the rock wall, taking to the water like a fish and the ropes like a trapeze artist. Five had privately wondered before if there wasn’t something more inhuman about them that he initially thought, seeing Diego perform such feats without the super strength Luther possessed. 

 

“Sounds like fun,” Diego muttered shortly. “Don’t take too long to learn, huh?” 

 

“I’ll try my best,” Five answered with a smirk. 

 

Pogo opened the door for their father not much longer, allowing Hargreeves to enter the room with his sharp steps and stoic face. He stood before them. Pogo closed the door and stood behind their father, nodding to the assembled children. “Good morning, Umbrella Academy,” Reginald addressed them. 

 

There was a chorus of answers varying in enthusiasm. Luther resumed his perfect posture the moment the door opened, now parroting the words their father wanted to hear with gusto. It made Five want to drive his fist into his twin's face, then Reginald's. Five would never understand how someone of his own blood could scrape and bow before that man that keeps them on an all but literal leash. He bit down the weird emotional swirl of disappoint-rage-pity that rose up like bile in his throat. There was still time to change things. 

 

“Recently, I was contacted by a publisher from a large, reputable newspaper asking for an interview with the Academy. Considering their credentials, I have agreed to the interview with two members of the Umbrella Academy. Number One and Number Three came to mind first.” His eyes roamed over each of them in turn. “Would anyone else be interested?” 

 

Five knew he wouldn’t be interested in parroting the words Reginald would shove down their throats before they even shook the interviewer’s hand. He had no interest in fame, really, and even less in flaunting his private life or powers to tens of thousands of strangers. No one else spoke up either. Ben stared at his shoes, frowning a little but silent nonetheless. Neither Diego or Klaus even bothered to look upset. Reginald was looking to Allison and Luther, as if to immediately confirm they would be the ones involved. Five rolled his eyes; Luther caught the movement, his eyebrows coming together in a questioning look. 

 

Their father nodded once. “Numbers One and Three, stay behind and we will discuss the upcoming interview. When we are finished here you will join your siblings in your regularly scheduled lessons. Dismissed.” 

 

Four of the Hargreeves brothers rose to leave. Five left the room, the last brother’s gaze heavy on his back. 

 

* 

 

Luther knocked on the door to the fifth-floor bathroom just after four in the afternoon. Five had been in the middle of another attempt to beat his time freezing record, and he answered the door looking just as annoyed as any interrupted experimenting academic would. His scowl didn’t change the steel in Luther’s eyes. Five was unsurprised to see him and simply stepped aside with a raised brow, arm out to indicate Luther could step inside. He glanced at the interior of the bathroom, Five's notes and graphs scatted over the floor like fallen leaves, but still entered the room with an air of purpose. 

 

“I came to talk to you.” 

 

Five poured himself a glass of lemonade, then served Luther his own. He sat on the lip of the bathtub and sipped his drink. His company tried the lemonade, set it down, leaned against the counter between the double sinks. 

 

“I figured as much,” Five said, shortly. 

 

“You’ve been acting different, lately, Five. What’s going on?” 

 

“Different how? I’ve been busy, if that’s what you mean, with trying to branch out my powers. It’s been a very time-consuming process. The math alone-“ 

 

“No,” Luther cut in, and it was quite sharp. “That’s not what I mean. You’re angry at Dad. Well, angrier than usual. And Pogo, too. You've been encouraging us to include Seven more often. I’ve even seen you hanging out with Klaus, alone.” 

 

Prepared to deflect, Five scoffed at his brother’s surprisingly decent observations. “It’s a crime to get along with my siblings or disagree with my parent, now?” 

 

“No,” he said with a concentrated frown, “that’s not what I meant. You’re suddenly acting like a leader, or something, trying to pull us all together.” 

 

“Are you seriously concerned I want your position? Isn’t Diego enough competition?” 

 

Luther slapped a palm on the counter and Five was momentarily concerned it would break. “If you aren’t going to tell me anything, Five, you shouldn’t have even bothered letting me in the door. I’m trying to help.” He looked at his shoes and dragged a hand through his hair, avoiding Five's eyes when he spoke again. “I’m Number One. It’s my place to lead the team. And whatever you’ve been doing, whatever strings you’ve been pulling between all of us, it’s working. The Academy functions much better when we’re all working together.” 

 

Neither of them said anything for a long moment. Luther raised his eyes, pinning Five in place with a confident stare. 

 

“It's not just good for the Umbrella Academy. Seven's been smiling a little lately, talking to Diego, Ben, and Klaus more. She seems happier.” 

 

His heart clenched at how even fucking Luther noticed Seven had been unhappy before – but Five’s the only one who bothered to take action. “Do you want to know the truth?” Five asked. 

 

“Of course.” 

 

He thought hard before starting the speech to his brother. Luther wasn’t especially intelligent, but he wasn’t an idiot about most things. If only most things included their father. “You’re our Number One, Luther, as you pointed out. You should be paying close attention to each member of the team and your family, but you haven’t. Between the endless competition you and Diego have put yourselves in, Allison is the only other one you notice. And while that’s all well and good – she is your soulmate after all – it doesn’t mean you aren’t neglecting the rest of your family. 

 

“When was the last time you saw Ben without his nose in a book, excluding training? Or the last time you made Vanya laugh, the last time Klaus listened to anything you said.” Five laughed, low and bitter. “We’re all fucking miserable here, Luther. We’re either killing ourselves trying to reach Father’s standards or killing ourselves because we just can’t. And those are our damn options. Dad preaches solitude and isolation when we live in a house full of children who need interaction and affection. So, what if he’s wrong? What if we weren’t meant to be strangers in one house, but a family who takes care of each other. We could go so far with so many powers! Klaus could finally be more than just a look out. What if Ben's torso wasn’t ripped open every time he took part in a mission? What if we ditched the choke chains Father told us was best and made our own damn choices?” 

 

By the time he was done, he was breathing hard and had moved from his seat. The glass of lemonade sat abandoned and half-empty while Five, in his anger and passion to make Luther understand, had stood and stalked the few feet between them. He let his hands drop to his side. His twin hadn’t moved much during the speech, only looking thoughtful and lost. Five sighed and hesitated before placing a hand on Luther’s forearm. “We don’t have to listen to him, not really. We don’t have to be so unhappy, to hide away everything that he would take from us.” He sent a meaningful glance at the arm Five wasn’t touching, the one that had Luther’s soulmark. 

 

Luther’s eyes followed Five’s, then looked to the hand on his arm. Five watched the understanding dawn on him when he looked to his own mark and then watched Luther’s face transform into confusion and near awe at the glance to Five’s mark. Five furrowed his brows and looked down. 

 

His fucking mark was glowing. At the wrong damn time. 

 

Five removed his hand and pulled his sleeve down. His brother opened his mouth, undoubtedly to ask a hundred questions that Five had zero answers to. “Think about what I just said, Luther. If you want, above all else, to make sure the Umbrella Academy isn’t just a mess of barely stable superpowered kids who can’t stand each other tied together by the bounds of legal guardianship, then think about changing some things.” 

 

He stepped a few feet away from Luther. “And don’t start asking questions about things you have no involvement in. The team, the family – that's what you should be worrying about.” He jumped, not even pausing to think about the destination when he already knew where Vanya was. 

 

 *****  

 

“Vanya?” 

 

The music room was silent, ironically, even though Seven should have been practicing for the next thirty-seven minutes. He walked past the couple of shelves of sheet music, looking past the unused rows of woodwinds for Seven. She was seated at one of the two pianos. Her violin case sat atop the grand to her left, her fingers instead training the keys of the upright she sat at. Five sat down next to her and brushed the hair from her eyes. 

 

“Hello, Five,” she said softly. 

 

“Our marks are glowing again, Seven.” 

 

“Mm-hmm. I was practicing when it started. I thought I’d wait for you to come find me so we could talk about it again. Do you have any ideas?” 

 

He sighed, for what felt like that hundredth time that day. “I was talking to Luther when it started; he wanted to ask about how differently I’ve been acting lately. He can’t see how Hargreeves has set up us for failure, hating each other and constantly trying to be better – better than we were, better than the others. I tried to make him understand that we have change the course we’re on now or it’ll only get worse from here. By the time I was done, my mark was glowing. The only thing I can think of is high emotion. When one of us feels something too strongly, the marks react.” 

 

“I think so, too. I was playing, concentrated on getting Hadyn’s second concerto right, and I felt... Differently. I was more determined; I was angry: I felt desperate to succeed.” Vanya removed her hands from the piano keys and placed them on the bench, tangling her right hand with Five’s left. “I need to show you something, Five. Something happened while I was playing.” 

 

She tugged him off the bench and he followed. They walked past the pianos to the back half of the room, where the doorways to the dual sound rooms were. Five knew Vanya favored the one on the left for her violin, something about the acoustics he didn’t know too much about, and was dismayed to see the state it was in. 

 

The room was usually empty save for a desk and optional speakers for the practicing musician. Anyone from the outside could watching the musician though a huge window. It was a small set-up, but neat and orderly. Now, though, the large glass window that covered half the wall facing the music room was shattered, the shards scattered nearly ten feet out from the frame. The desk, not quite as sturdy as the ones placed in their bedrooms, was mostly in splinters. Part of a leg was lodged in a drum to their left. Five stepped around the wood and the glass, stared down at the door blown straight off its hinges and into a rack of bass guitars. Parts of the two speakers were strewn around the room as well, wires and black plastic coating instruments and the floor before them. The only thing intact from the sound room was the walls, though they certainly weren’t unmarked. It looked like the shards and splinters had blown around the room tornado-style, leaving gashes and debris embedded into the walls, wrecking everything. Five was stunned by the mess – and even more by the fact that Vanya was entirely unmarked. 

 

He turned to her to make completely sure that was the case, hands going to Vanya’s hands, arms, shoulders, and face in turn. The exposed skin of her legs between the uniform’s skirt and socks was perfectly fine. There was no trace of blood, cuts, or any sort of wound. 

 

“Seven, are you okay? What happened?” He cradled her face in his hands still, Vanya’s big brown eyes looking back at him. 

 

One of her hands touched his elbow, a small attempt to calm him. “I was playing. My emotions were out of control, I think I was feeling what you were. I kept practicing and of nowhere, wind was whipping around the room and then the desk and the speakers were in pieces. The window shattered and I kept playing, until the door blew off; I couldn’t move from my spot with everything flying around and I just wanted to keep playing, like I couldn’t stop. But when I finished the song the door had just blew off and I ran out of there.” 

 

She was mostly calm, save for a tremor in her voice. Five couldn’t believe what he was seeing, didn’t understand what had happened. A storm in the sound room? “Like you were in the eye of a storm? What caused all of this?” 

 

Vanya looked to the floor, then to him, and her brown eyes were wet when they met his again. “I think I did it, Five, but I don’t know how. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what happened.” The hand on his elbow tightened its grip, her other hand covering one of his hands cupping her face. She moved closer to him and Five did the same. They stood in the middle of the mess seeking comfort from one another. “I have no idea what’s on going on anymore.” 

 

“I don’t either, Vanya, but we need to find out. We’ll...” He glanced at the trashed room around them. With a deep breath, he continued, “We’ll clean this up as much as we can, first. Then we’ll start looking for answers. It’ll be alright.” 

 

He hoped so, at least.


	8. Honey, if you stay, I'll be forgiven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Despite everything else going on, Five Hargreeves is a superhero.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was originally much longer. So long, in fact, that it cut it off here because otherwise it was starting to jump around too much for my taste. Thank you for the astounding 500 kudos we've reached!! What lovely, devoted readers I've found. Y'all are too sweet.
> 
> Chapter title taken from My Chemical Romance.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Five.” Vanya was looking at him with the same disappointed frown Mom often wore looking at Klaus or Allison. The mirrored expression would have made him laugh, if the amusement wouldn’t have made Seven even more annoyed.  “Do you even think Luther would help us?” 

 

Unfortunately, Five had no doubts about that part of the plan. Luther would be over the moon to help his siblings – especially considering they would be “confiding” in him. “Luther will help us.” 

 

“But Five-” 

 

“This is the best option we have, Vanya.” He looked around the room to survey how far their clean-up effort had gotten them. After dinner, Five had raided the cleaning closet for trash bags, a broom, and a dust pan. Between the two of them, all of the wood, glass, and plastic pieces were swept up and thrown out. The remaining glass in the windowsill was knocked out to be disposed of as well. Five rolled the pierced drum into an out of the way corner, hoping that could be ignored for now. The mess of plastic, wires, and mesh that once functioned as speakers had been tossed out, despite an effort from Vanya to piece them back together. The door to the sound room was propped next to the doorway looking desolate but intact. 

 

“I’ll jump to the mall – it shouldn’t be closing for another hour or so – and replace the desk, speakers, and with any luck, the window. If I can’t find a decent piece of glass tonight, I’ll find a specialty place tomorrow. I grabbed a few books on basic home repair from the library. All of them tell me how to re-hinge a door, and two have sections on replacing windows. But we have to have Luther to lift it into place. There’s no way we’ll be able to hold that up, let alone apply the adhesive to keep it in place.” 

 

Five wrapped an arm around Seven and brought her to his side, leaning over to place his chin atop her head. She hadn’t spoken a single word during dinner. Her gaze was distant and her hands unsteady, clinking her silverware enough for a sharp look from Father. Whatever happened in the sound room had left her shaken even a couple hours later. Vanya relaxed the smallest bit with the closeness. Seven’s part of the plan made her uncomfortable, but he knew it wouldn’t be difficult. 

 

“Just talk to Luther; he’s going to be in the gym until Mom tells him to go to bed. You have at least an hour and a half. Stick to the story we talked about, and I promise Luther won’t have a problem helping us.” Five dropped a kiss to the top of Seven’s head and pulled away from her. “I’ll be home soon. Wait up for me.” 

 

Seven’s eyes were trained on her shoes, undoubtedly thinking about the next conversation she’d be having with Luther. Finally, she nodded and met his gaze. “I’ll be here. Stay safe, Five.” 

 

He smirked. “I’m just going shopping, Vanya.” And then he was gone. 

 

 *****  

 

He jumped first to his room, preferring to grab his wallet even though it would be easy enough to take the items he wanted. The money was either swiped from the occasional criminal or their father. Every great once in a while, Reginald would even deign to gift them with a small amount of pocket change for their family shopping trips. Never enough at one time to buy something wild like a tattoo, train ticket, or exotic pet. Five was quite good with money, and even better at squirrelling it away. Wallet retrieved, he headed for his next destination. 

 

The mall provided both a decent replica desk and the exact same models of speakers that were smashed to pieces. He jumped the purchases one by one to the music room. Each time, it was empty. Having asked around the furniture store where he bought the desks, Five discovered a home improvement store with late hours. The measurements were common enough to be stocked in their glass pane section. It was the most expensive item on the list, but Five still managed the materials for basic plastering and a cheap repainting of the sound room as well. He wouldn’t be sleeping tonight, but it would keep Vanya safe. His powers had never been explosive in that way, tearing things apart and putting gashes in the walls, and if someone looked too closely that would be easy to see. The room wouldn’t be quick to remodel, but he had a few ideas in mind. 

 

Five dumped an armful of paint trays, roller brushes, and door hinges onto the checkout counter and gave the old woman behind it a bright smile. “Good evening, ma’am.” 

 

She smiled right back, just as kindly and twice as wide. “Good evening, young man.” Her crinkled brown eyes roamed over the basket of paint, plaster, and putty knives. “You seem to have quite the project planned, don’t you?” 

 

“I should also have a glass pane and glaze waiting for me, as well. My siblings and I are redecorating the music room.” 

 

The cashier shuffled a few registers down to retrieve the rest of his purchases. A strange cart held the glass upright, allowing him to wheel it to the parking lot. He paid for the lot and chatted about their remodeling plans the entire time, thinking all the while it would be good to get even more the of Hargreeves involved in their project. He’d cover up the harder to explain signs of the explosion, then bring in his siblings for a manipulated bonding experiment. 

 

Five declined help with carting his things outside, waving goodbye to the cashier and finding a secluded spot to jump his things home in a few different trips. 

 

 *****  

 

It was half past midnight when Five finally jumped to back to his room to go to bed. He and Vanya had spent the time after his shopping trip plastering the walls, removing all lodged projectiles and their evidence. They’d parted shortly before midnight, Five dropping Vanya off in her room while he visited the fifth floor bathroom for a well-earned shower. He felt clean for the first time in hours, exhausted as he had been for half of the past week. His bed was a welcome sight and the sheets were whisper soft as he slid between them to find some measure of rest. 

 

Thankfully, it took him no time to fall asleep. 

 

He was still woken up much too soon, not even three hours after he’d laid down. The Academy’s alarm woke him in an instant. Five instinctively rolled out of bed and began dressing himself for whatever mission needed them at three in the damn morning. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes before jumping to the bathroom to brush his teeth. His feet stumbled a bit when he jumped to the parlor where their father was waiting. Five was the first to arrive, unsurprisingly. Allison was next, and the remaining four jogged in soon after. They piled into the car silently. 

 

Five sat tiredly between Four and Six, his knees knocking into Klaus’s with every bump of the vehicle. His brother yawned excessively and forced Five to fight doing the same. Luther glanced his way every once in a while. There was no malice in his gaze, only questions and a hint of surprise. It seems that Five had been right about his willingness to get involved. Later, when he was more awake and they weren’t in danger, he’d approach a couple more of the Academy members. 

 

The children listened in silence as Pogo told them of a hostage situation they were called in to help with. A man was holding his recently divorced ex-wife and two young daughters hostage in the hotel suite they were staying in. He was armed and had already spouted a few threats aimed at the mother of his children. The couple divorced due to his excessive drinking and accompanied violent tendencies, so it was likely the man was intoxicated as well. 

 

All in all, if the man could be subdued quickly, it wasn’t a very dangerous mission. It would certainly be high tension – unless the woman and her daughters were removed first. They were the priority, after all. 

 

Pogo and their father dropped them off under the large black awning of the hotel. Luther led the team inside, marching them straight to the elevator. Save for a classical piece Vanya could name off the top of her head playing in the elevator, the ride to the twelfth floor was just as silent as their car ride, each member of the team lost in their own thoughts. Luther walked right up to the nearest police officer in the plush red and gold hallway and demanded an update on the situation. The Umbrella Academy fanned out around the stuttering policeman in anticipation. 

 

“T-the suspect is Andrew O’Connor, 37, th-thought to be armed with a single Springfield pistol, registered in his name and bo-bought two years ago. The hostages in-include his former wife, Celeste Bruce, 33, and their two daughters, Catelyn and Carolyn, 3 and 5.” The officer’s badge read  _J. Solis_  and Five watched Luther take note of that. 

 

“Thank you, Officer Solis. Is there any way you could get me a copy of the hotel suite’s layout?” 

 

“Y-yes, of course, sir,” he said before positively tripping over himself to follow through. It was rare to see an officer of the law so impressed with the Academy after their years of involvement, but Five didn’t remember this particular man from any of their previous missions. Granted, he never tried to remember any of the people he ran into on the job. 

 

A minute later, Solis and a dark-haired woman were coming their way. The new addition was a more seasoned officer if her stride and squared shoulders were anything to go by. Solis did a decent job keeping up even if he obviously lacked the confidence of his companion. Luther held out his hand in greeting immediately to the woman. 

 

“I’m Officer Larson. It’s a pleasure to meet the famous Umbrella Academy.” She wasted no time once the pleasantry was said, removing her hand from Luther’s only to pass him a laminated paper mapping out the suite. There was an open living area and kitchenette, a small bathroom off of the living room, and a large bedroom and master bathroom accessible only from the bedroom. The kitchenette had a small pantry and cabinets big enough for children to crawl into, while the bedroom had a closet large enough for two grown adults to hide. 

 

The team discussed where the children were thought to be – locked in the bedroom – as well as where the suspect and Celeste were. O’Connor demanded Celeste man the phone, negotiating with the police after her successful 911 call when he attacked her in the hallway of the hotel. Once he’d gotten her and the children into the hotel room, he’d locked the girls in the bedroom and forced their mother to make excuses, saying their parents simply had things to talk about. Officers had overheard him threatening to use the gun if she told them children he was armed or if she attempted to run for the door. He sounded unstable from what the policemen were able to catch from the door and the background of the emergency call Celeste had managed to make. 

 

They spent a few moments debating over the best course of action before Five interrupted with determination in his voice. 

 

“I’m going to jump into the bedroom’s closet and see if the children are alone. If I can get them out of there, it’s only a matter of protecting the woman from the gunman.” 

 

Larson nodded at this, though Luther looked like he wanted to argue. Five left no time for that. He gathered the familiar energy in his hands to make the jump, looking at his siblings before he left. “I’ll be right back.” 

 

The closet was dark and Five crouched as he appeared, hoping to avoid knocking the hangers around and causing a ruckus. He stumbled over a leather shoe, muffled by the malleable material of the oxford shoe and carpeting below. The doors latched at the top instead of using a proper handle and lock. They were quieter than a regular door would have been, whispering open when Five heard nothing but muted cartoons and stuttering breaths on the other side. A sliver of the room appeared; Five could see an animated movie on the television atop the dresser and the corner of a bed. The sheets seemed undisturbed from his angle. He opened the door another inch. The uneven breathing he could hear grew stronger as the door opened, sounding more and more like a little girl quietly crying herself into exhaustion. 

 

He couldn’t hear the loud breaths of a grown man, or the quick breathing the terrified mother would be doing. Five pushed the door open all the way – energy gathered at his hands to jump in a moment’s notice. The rest of the room was revealed, two large queen beds taking up most of the room. He noted the exits, one for the living area and one for the master bathroom. A desk was along the wall by the dresser, and two little girls were curled up on the bed closest to him. 

 

They were huddled together in a nest of blankets at the foot of the bed, for optimal cartoon watching, no doubt. Five could make out a head of blonde hair and the profile of a blue-eyed, raven-haired girl. The one under the blanket was the younger girl, he noted, and also the one crying. Her sister sat vigil above her. The older girl's face was half-turned towards the door to the suite's living room. She was silent and hadn’t noticed the closet door creeping open. 

 

Five let the energy gathered in his hands dissipate. He put his finger to his lips and deliberately swung the door open, neither to slowly or too quickly so the girl didn’t startle. 

 

She jumped at the movement, swiveling her head to look at the closet. Her young face twisted up into expression of terror. Before she could scream – if that was even her plan, considering what was on the other side of the door – he spoke. 

 

“I’m Number Five, from the Umbrella Academy.” Five grinned a bit, tapping a finger to the domino mask on his face and then the Academy’s insignia on his breast. He was silently grateful when her eyes lit up in recognition. “Are you Carolyn?” 

 

She didn’t speak, just nodded her head with wide, wet eyes and a wobbling bottom lip. Five crept out of the closet slowly. The entire time, Carolyn watched him. There was no word on what the two girls knew about the situation; with or without all the information, it was obvious they were terrified and likely wanted their mother. Carolyn flinched when he drew to his full height, but Five kept his expression and movements calm as he took a half-step into the room. He didn’t want to scare the girls, but he needed to get them out of there. 

 

“There are some really nice policemen outside waiting to see you and your sister to make sure you’re alright. I’m going to take you out there, okay?” 

 

The girl immediately started shaking her head, wetness spilling over from her eyes to her cheeks. Five smiled, jumped from his position in the closet doorway to in between the beds. Carolyn attempted to make sense of what she just saw. She was starting to resemble a lost little owl, head swiveling towards each side of the bed in turns. Five held out his hand to her. “We don’t have to go through the living room. I’ll take you straight there.” 

 

A mask of resolve settled over Carolyn’s face when she took in Five’s words. “I can’t leave my momma,” she told him. A crash sounded from the other room and they both flinched at the noise. 

 

Five withdrew his hand, placing both of them on his knees and leaning down to her height on the bed. “I know you’re scared for your mom right now, but I’m here to help her. All of my brothers and my sister are here with me, too, because we’re all special. We can get your mom out of here, but first, I need to get you and Catelyn out of here first. Now, will you come with?” 

 

Carolyn snagged her lower lip between her teeth, worrying it. But her eyes flitted to the sleeping girl curled around her and Five knew her choice. She released her lip. There was no trembling threat of tears from it this time. Carolyn nodded her consent. 

 

As quickly and gently as he could, Five draped the sleeping Catelyn half-over his shoulder and supported her weight with an arm around her. Carolyn climbed off the bed and took Five’s sleeve in her hand as he instructed. Five wasted no more time. He whisked them away, popping up right before the elevators in the hall outside. 

 

Once an officer spotted them, it was quick work from there. Five passed the younger girl off to Solis, who had been lurking around the Academy members, and hoped she would sleep through most of the remaining drama. Carolyn hadn’t stopped clinging to his sleeve even as policeman and paramedics began swarming them. She all but hid behind his skirts when they started to reach for her. The whole time, she didn’t make a bit of noise; her eyes started at the people around her with a glaze of fear and tears. Five stepped backwards from the mob of officials – allowing Carolyn the same distance from the others. 

 

“Give the girl some damn room! She’s scared, you idiots.” He put his hand on Carolyn’s shoulder, her fingers twisted in the fabric by his elbow and her big blue eyes trained on him. Five nodded to her and proceeded to scan the group in front of him. He used his other hand to point to an older woman in paramedic’s garb, maybe forty, with a neutral expression but laugh lines around her eyes. She seemed both motherly and professional enough not to terrify the poor girl he’d just rescued. “If you don’t mind, I’d like you to check Carolyn over for injuries. She seems fine. It doesn’t take a team of paramedics to look at one little girl.” 

 

The woman stepped forward and held out her hand to Carolyn, waiting for the girl to shake it. Five smirked and nudged his new companion. Carolyn looked at him shrewdly but shook the woman’s hand. 

 

“Hello, my name is Miri. Can I look you over to make sure you’re okay?” 

 

“I’m Carolyn,” she chirped in response. Nothing else. 

 

Five sighed and stepped back from Carolyn to crouch in front of her. She gazed at his domino mask with such interest Five was sure she’d reach out to touch it, but she didn’t. “Carolyn, I’ve got to go back to my team so we can go get your mom and bring her back here to you. Can you let Miri check you out while I’m gone?” He gestured to the two cots set up along the wall. A sleepy looking Catelyn was awake and having a bandage placed on a cut to her cheek. “It’s just like a doctor’s visit.” 

 

Carolyn nodded. Five smiled widely at her and praised her compliance before going off in search of his team. 

 

He hadn’t taken three steps away from the little girl when he heard the unmistakable sound of a door being kicked in. Five cursed and began jogging the length of the hall to reach the hotel suite Celeste Bruce was being held in. He rounded the corner soon enough to hear a shot ring out. Five jumped mid-step, transporting himself from the mouth of the side hallway to the where the hotel room door was resting on the ground. Two Luther-shaped handprints were indented in the frame and he had little doubt as to where his idiot twin brother was right now. 

 

Sure enough, Luther had O’Connor on the ground, struggling and cursing the super-strong teenager holding him down. Allison was untying the woman. He could hear the murmur of soft, soothing words, but they were too quiet to tell if there was power laced in them. Diego was carefully retrieving the gun Luther had knocked out of the suspects hands. Five gave a sigh of relief that it was all over so quickly – before the adrenaline left his system, even. He just stood in the doorway panting hard for a moment. The terror in his gut and tension in his shoulders remained, but everything was alright. The hostages were safe, the bad guy was being cuffed. 

 

It was a win. 

 

*****

 

Five crawled back into bed and hoped to sleep every second of the next two hours and some change. While the mission was simple, it had been high-stress and in the middle of the night. Between the sound room explosion, the glowing marks, and the experiments with his powers, superhero work was even more exhausting than usual. 

 

He closed his eyes and prayed for sleep. 

 

When he opened his eyes, Five stood among the ruins of his childhood home. The entire city-square-block of puzzled-together buildings was devastated. Smoldering rubble burned around him, smoke rising from piles of rock and debris. The air was thick with pollution. The sky almost looked as though it were on fire. He stumbled from the front steps – what was left of them – and took in his surroundings with abject horror. 

 

Behind him, surrounded by smoke and ash, was Vanya. She was on her knees, tattered jeans and a sweater with one sleeve half-burned away, long hair tumbling down her shoulders and covering her face. Her hands were buried in the rubble in front of her. Hunched over as she was, he could not see her face. But the way her shoulders shook betrayed the great, heaving sobs coming from Seven. Five rushed to her side, dropped to his own knees in front of her. He reached out, pushing the hair from her face and cupping her cheeks in his hands. The eyes staring back at him weren’t Vanya’s eyes, not normally. There were bloodshot and almost impossibly wide. Tears clung to her dark lashes, illuminated by the ring of glowing white around her irises. 

 

“Vanya? Vanya, what happened?” His eyes roamed her for cuts or scrapes and he thought wildly of a paramedic doing the same to another scared girl, a lifetime ago. He couldn’t see any wounds, any blood. “Are you okay?” 

 

She kept crying in that wholly devasted manner. It tore at Five’s heart and he hardly even noticed his mark glowing against the skin of her throat. “F-five,” Vanya croaked. 

 

He shuffled closer on his knees, ignoring the bite of whatever littered the ground. Glass, rocks, metal, wood, who knew? It looked like the whole world had gone up in flames, with only Five and Seven stumbling around the wasteland left behind. He didn’t know what the hell happened, didn’t know how they got to be here. But Seven was heartbroken, heartbreaking in her despair. He had to fix that, if nothing else. 

 

“Vanya, you have to tell me what happened.” 

 

“You left, Five, you left and you only came back when it was too late.” 

 

Five wanted to ask what she meant, what she was talking about at all. He never left, would never leave Seven. Stupid things, like library trips and Academy missions, parted them for a few hours at a time. But other than that, he was never more than a jump or a doorway away. He was entirely unwilling to be parted from Vanya, keeping their soulbond itself a secret so that she may stay by his side in even the smallest, saddest capacity. And where would he go? 

 

Where else would he want to be, but with Seven? 

 

The world around them melted away in the fashion that all dreams do, leaving him with the echo of her accusations and a racing heart when he opened his eyes. The sun had hardly lit the sky, darkness clinging desperately in its last minutes of nighttime. His heart still thumped wildly in his chest and he tried to remember the details of what he’d dreamed.

 

But only Vanya’s words stayed with him, marking the end of the world as no fault but his own. 


	9. Keep a calendar, this way you'll always know

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brothers have indescribable bonds that encompass everything from teasing to home repair. Five exercises his reading and comprehension skills.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay! Sorry this took a little longer than usual. Things are picking up, so get ready for that. But also, emotions. All the revelations and research wouldn't be anything without the feels, y'all, so those are gonna be coming soon, too. Let me know what you think. ;)
> 
> Chapter title from FOB.

The glass panel that would replace the window in the sound room wasn’t too heavy to hold, but it was certainly awkward to keep in place while Seven applied the glue. Luther kept a steady grip nearly the entire time. Of course. Five shifted his hold multiple times, but thankfully never dropped the damn thing. It took almost fifteen minutes to glue the panel in place; sweat beaded at Five’s temple from the anxious concentration of the job. He and Luther muttered the occasional encouraging comment to Seven. She offered a few thanks and dry comments. 

 

It went even better than he could have hoped for.  There wasn’t a single rude word or tense moment between the three. Five even almost managed to stop internally panicking at their relation. He wondered if Luther would ever accept the truth as Five himself was beginning to. 

 

They all stood back together, admiring the new window. Five made a mental note to clean all the fingerprints and smudges off the shining glass later. He still had a mess of dust and newspaper to clean up from the drywalling he’d done the night before. Vanya had a steady hand from her violin playing, so there was little to no issue with the glue getting off track. She was a much better candidate for the job than others, such as Klaus. 

 

“Well, Luther, I don’t think we could have done it without you,” Five said. 

 

His brother chuckled. “No, I don’t think you could have.” 

 

Vanya laughed in surprise at his side, her shoulder shaking against his. Five rolled his eyes. “Ben would have helped me, you know. Maybe even Diego.” 

 

Luther returned the eye roll, matching the grin Seven wore, too. “Ben could have helped. You’re right. Diego probably wouldn’t want to. Even Allison, if she was channeling my strength that day. But you asked me.” 

 

Something he said made Five pause, look at little closer at his brother. Luther was joking around; his body language was relaxed and he was still grinning that stupid grin, half amused and half smug. But when he talked about Allison his eyes lost the shine and squint of such a pleased expression. Five noticed Luther crossed his arms as he finished his teasing, too, a notably defensive position for such a harmless interaction. 

 

 _Channeling his strength?_  

 

Seven interrupted his study of Luther with her own gratitude. “Thank you for the help, Number One. It’s good to have a heavy lifter around.” 

 

Luther chuckled, put a firm but hesitant hand on Vanya's shoulder in an affection gesture. “No problem, Seven. Five can’t do all the work around here.” He leaned around Vanya to give Five a grin and also ensure he’d returned to the conversation. 

 

“It’s only fair for me to be doing the extra work, what with me blowing the room up like that.” Five gave them a sardonic grin. 

 

“Good point, Five; your mess, your responsibility.” 

 

And it was, in a roundabout way. It was his emotions that caused Vanya's mark to freak out. If that was what happened. He’d be finding answers at some point. It was only a matter of time now. 

 

 *****  

 

It was with whispered words in hallways and hurried requests before lessons that Five roped three of his brothers into helping repair the sound room. He and Vanya had done the replastering themselves, picking wood and glass from the wall with careful hands or tweezers before mending all the gashes in the wall. His brothers would help with the painting and re-hinging of the door. 

 

He and Vanya would be there to direct. The whole time had potential to be good for the siblings, a way for Five to demonstrate how well they work together and potentially get along.  _With Seven_ , as Five relished thinking about. Her involvement was simple and sweet – no Father or Allison to sour it easily. 

 

And he had an errand to run, during this time. They would have the entire afternoon and evening for the project. Father, Pogo, Allison, and Luther would all be out of town for the interview they set up last week. It was expected they wouldn’t return until after dinner. Five decided they would use this time for the repair, and he would use this time for a bit of reading. 

 

Pogo’s study would be empty for hours and hours. Five didn’t even need that long, he figured; he was a quick reader, after all. 

 

 *****  

 

Ben knocked on the door to the music room. Five and Vanya were sitting side by side at a study table covered in newspaper. A fresh layer also covered the floor of the sound room, awaiting the mess that would come with repainting the walls with most of the Hargreeves children. The two of them arrived an hour before the others were to join them, setting out paint trays and brushes and rollers. When the second of the brothers arrived, they shared an amused look at his politeness before Seven crossed the room to open the door. 

 

“We all live here, Ben, you don’t have to knock,” she reminded, a mildly teasing look accompanying her words. 

 

Their brother shrugged, smiled in a charmingly shy way. “It’s better not to interrupt. You could have been playing, or talking.” 

 

“Nope. Just waiting on the lot of you,” Five drawled as they approached the table. “You know Klaus likes to be fashionably late, and Diego arrives according to his daily priorities. But I can always find them, if necessary.” 

 

“No need to send out a search party, bro,” Klaus called from the doorway. He had a juice box in one hand and Diego’s sleeve in the other, dragging them both towards the other kids. With a bubblegum pink tee shirt and matching bandana tied around his forehead, Klaus was grinning ear to ear and seemed eager enough to be there. Diego, alternatively, wore black, grey, and a bored expression. 

 

“Ben, you’re mixing the paint. I need Klaus to help me carry the brushes and paint rollers. Diego, please help Five with the trays; you’ve got the steadiest hands out of us all.” 

 

Five regarded Vanya in admiration, unused to watching her dole out orders at all – let alone with skill and grace. He eyed each brother going about their task without question. Ben was already prying open a can of paint with a putty knife, humming to himself. Vanya lead Klaus around as they gathered the painting tools. Klaus towered over her as he followed her around. It was a near-comical comparison: Vanya was dark, small, and dainty in her uniform skirt and button-down, while Klaus blared bright in his skin-tight pink shirt and a pair of snow-white cargo pants that hung off his hipbones. He had grown tall and lanky, thin from stress and drugs, but still enough of his kind and whimsical self to slip another juice box from one of his dozen pockets at Vanya’s request. Her answering smile shone bright and sincere. Seven had even charmed Diego with her small compliment. He moved the trays closer to Ben, ready to be filled and carried to the sound room behind them. 

 

With a smile, he stepped into line as well. Vanya had given him a task. He had work to do and brothers to help. 

 

Once Ben had filled the trays, he and Diego carried them into the sound room. There was an air of careful competitiveness. They shared smug glances and made deliberate, sharp steps in a contest of speed and steadiness on their way. Neither spilled a drop of paint, but Diego was the first one to cross the threshold. He sent Five a silent, gloating expression and Five flipped him off when Vanya wasn’t looking his way. They left it at that. 

 

Ben followed them in his own quiet amusement. He was even so kind as to smother his laugh at Five’s sneaky retort. Had Klaus seen, Vanya surely would have been alerted. Four was the least subtle of the Hargreeves siblings, by far. 

 

Vanya passed out the rollers in blissful ignorance of the boyish amusement around her. She pointed out the window’s taped edges and pleaded with them to be wary. They didn’t need paint on the glass Luther helped them replace, she assured. Five knew that at least Ben would take the warning seriously, with his affinity for pleasing their Number One. 

 

They all dispersed across the sound room to take place at a different paint tray, situated strategically. Waving his roller around, Klaus called, “Remember boys, firm, even strokes are best!” He followed the joke with a wink and a grin. 

 

Vanya’s face went red as she reached her own corner of the room, eyes darting away from any of the others in the room. Five scowled at her discomfort and made a point of tripping Klaus up as he walked past Five’s chosen painting area. Four stumbled but didn’t fall, his paint roller and empty juice box falling to the ground. 

 

“Watch your tongue in front of ladies, Four. You wouldn’t want a stranger being vulgar to Vanya.” 

 

Seven had matched his scowl, directed it at both of them in their equally stupid displays of immaturity. But Klaus merely gathered his things and grinned at Five. “Our little brother has gotten awfully protective of little Vanya, right boys?” He looked to Diego and Ben in turn, the former with an amused air and the latter with a worried frown. “But he’s right. Seven shouldn’t have to listen to such vulgarity. Benny! Tell us a story.” 

 

Five settled down and listened as Ben started to weave them a tale he’d read at one point in time. He could feel Seven’s eyes on him, still, accusing and annoyed. But she couldn’t resist Ben’s storytelling for long. They all soon fell into the rhythm of painting the walls. Klaus was the most frequent interruption in their brother’s narrative. He had questions and predictions at every turn, shouting out his opinions with abandon. Diego and Vanya asked the odd question, and Vanya even made a few insightful observations on the plot or development that made the others hum in agreement. Five liked watching Klaus puzzle together her points with an array of expressions to match his thought process. The walls were painted in record time with the entertainment. 

 

From the hundreds of novels Ben devoured in his spare time, it was a wonder that he could weave stories with such detail on memory alone. Five was impressed with his lively recalling. Ben came to life with the words, developing and unfolding as the story itself did the same. The result was passionate and captivating. Sometimes, Five liked to imagine an older Ben working as a voice actor or novelist, using his love for stories and emotionally driven speaking talent for something more than entertaining his siblings. 

 

Sometimes, he pictured himself as a historian working with the help of having advanced his time traveling abilities. Sometimes, he imagined lecturing as a professor of physics, astrophysics, molecular biology even. Sometimes, he wanted to grow up and be the hero his father had always forced him to be. 

 

All of his daydreams included his work day ending the same way – coming home to Vanya, or occasionally following her wherever her work as a concert violinist took her. It was the most indulgent, the sweetest part of his aspirations. 

 

Five shook the clinging cobwebs of hopeful futures from his mind and turned his attention back to the project. The first coat was nearly finished, everyone moving on from the large paint rollers to the smaller brushes for detailing around edges and frames. Ben had put his tools away for a minute to make a trip to the kitchen. He could only orate so long before his throat ran dry, Five presumed, when he excused himself to retrieve a round of drinks. 

 

It was the perfect time to excuse himself for a bit of reading. 

 

He made a casual show of checking his watch, aware as he was that it was three hours past lunch and three more until dinner. Five also knew the appetite of superpowered teenage boys very well. He was but a slave to it himself, after all, devouring all manner of snacks and meals to satisfy his energy-draining training. The marshmallow and peanut butter sandwiches came to mind, a definite favorite of his. But he needed more than that to appease five teenagers. 

 

“Hey guys, anyone else up for pizza?” 

 

The immediate chorus of agreement made him smile. 

 

“Lazarre's downtown shouldn’t be too busy right about now. I bet I could be back in half an hour, tops.” And thirty minutes was more than enough to learn a few new things from Pogo. 

 

Five clapped Klaus on the back as they all wiped their hands of drying paint and ambled out of the small sound room. His family took a seat around the study table covered in newspaper, falling into an easy argument about toppings and quantity. He waited around for them to decide the official order – a small supreme, a medium vegetarian, and a large with extra pepperoni – before making his first stop. 

 

 *****  

 

The book wasn’t splayed open on Pogo’s desk this time, though Five figured it was a long shot for the same luck twice. It took a minute of rummaging around the office. Pogo’s study was well-kept, cluttered and smelling heavily of the yellow and white orchids standing proudly in one corner of the room. The desk boasted the closest thing to a mess in the silent study, a jumble of paper half spread across the surface. A stack of books and a few fancy fountain pens were off to the side. In places, the same black ink in those pens stained the wood of the desktop in black circles and short lines. A name plaque took precedence at the front of the desk; it was flanked by pictures of the Hargreeves children. All seven of them, not just the Academy photos, Five was pleased to note. 

 

It was a small detail, that Pogo included Vanya in the photos he kept of them, but one Five appreciated and Reginald didn’t duplicate. Only a huge photo of the Academy members – updated yearly – hung above their father’s chair in his study. No other personal photographs decorated his walls or desk. 

 

There were plenty of personal items in Pogo’s study. Five found books on rainforest-native plant growth and astronomy in Pogo’s first drawer. He was known to frequent the larger windows and roof of the Academy for star-gazing, either using one of his many well-placed telescopes or simply using the naked eye. Pogo influenced Luther’s love of space and space travel from a young age. And judging from the vanilla orchids and lobster-red heliconia growing around the room, Five guessed Pogo was at least somewhat nostalgic for the plants his forefathers were surrounded by. 

 

He ignored the urge to dig further into what their mysterious minder/educator kept close to his heart and resumed his initial search. It took much less time than he thought it would, the journal's resting place hidden from the curious gaze by just a simple trick. 

 

Five found the book in a false bottom of the second drawer in the desk. An innocent supply of thick letter paper, fresh pens, and paper clips covered the tiny hidden latch of the too-shallow drawer. 

 

He jumped to his room, slipped his jacket on and the book inside the jacket, and jumped downtown to grab a reward for his charitable siblings. 

 

 *****  

 

The dining area of Lazarre’s didn’t leave the best first impression, Five would readily admit. Even as a semi-frequent customer, the hole-in-the-wall restaurant’s appearance never endeared Five to the place. He liked the pretty red awning outside and the wrought iron work on the windows and doors. During the spring and summer, the herbs grown in the window planters gave the place a delicious smell. But other than that, it was pretty run-down. The tile flooring had probably been a lovely cream color at one point, but it was faded and cracked to a poor imitation of its former self. There was no dust to be seen, no cobwebs stretching across corners, but neither did Lazarre’s offer an image of sparkling cleanliness. From his seat along the benched wall by the door, Five could see marinara sauce splatters on a few counters and spots on the floor. Of the thirty or so tables, only four were occupied at this time of the day. People milled about in the sun-filled, lightly cilantro-scented restaurant sharing stories and baskets of breadsticks. The breadsticks here were always a little too stale, never buttered just right. 

 

But Lazarre’s had one attraction that drew him back time and time again. It kept the crumbling little place afloat and the Hargreeves children happy and full. 

 

Lazarre’s pizza was second to none. Five had no issue waiting in a dingy restaurant half-hidden behind a flower shop on the other side of town if it meant he would being going home with his three pizzas later. The general consensus among Lazarre’s fanatics was that the secret lay in the dough. Whether the order is for thin or regular crust, the pizza dough at Lazarre’s was freshly made every single day. The recipe was an old Italian one, modified by the original owner’s Moroccan wife. And for the last sixty years, the recipe worked its magic to draw hundreds of people to this tiny little pizza place. 

 

If a bit more money and elbow grease was put into the appearance, upkeep, and management, Five imagined Lazarre’s would be a small chain by now. As it was, it served as the perfect place for Five to crack open a book no one was supposed to know he possessed and wait for some food. 

 

He thumbed the cover of Pogo’s journal open, finding his place at the shocking truth of his twin brother’s first review. Five scanned the initial impressions Pogo had of each Hargreeves child. How much they had changed in those fourteen years, how little a difference it made when their father was pulling the strings to such extents. 

 

 _Number Two:  Born October 1_ _st_ _, 1989, in Santiago, Chile. Born to a theatre director. Black hair, brown eyes. A quiet, stubborn boy with a rebellious streak and a soft heart at ten months. Powers have not yet began to manifest, at least to our knowledge. Plays well with Numbers Six and Seven, often has spats of a competitive with Number One; strives to please Sir Reginald._

 

 _Number Three:  Born October 1_ _st_ _, 1989, in Odessa, Texas. Born to an osteopath and a police officer. Brown hair, brown eyes. An opinionated little girl, even at only ten months old, with a great need for affection. No powers have manifested at this time. Clings to all the nannies but Nanny Renae; fond of following Sir Reginald around when he is about, often making attempts to toddle after him or grasp at his pant leg._  

 

 _Number Four:  Born October 1_ _st_ _, 1989, in_ _Ikast_ _, Denmark. Born to a baker. Brown hair, hazel eyes. A troubled boy of ten months, often crying and searching around rooms physically or just by looking around. Sir Reginald is sure that he will be a necromancer, or at least have a link to the realm of the dead. Seeks affection and protection from all of the nannies; does not make frequent attempts to play with the other children, but never turns them down when the offer is extended to him._  

 

Five glanced away from the journal and around the restaurant with sharp eyes. This would be the beginning, the first piece of information he willing sought out about himself in the book today. No one paid him any mind. There was another twenty minutes to go before his order would be ready, and plenty of reading to occupy himself with. 

 

 _Number Five:  Born October 1_ _st_ _, in Bremen, Germany. Born to a school teacher and an auto repair mechanic. Black hair, blue eyes (though they show signs of darkening). At ten months old, he is quiet and watchful. There have been no signs of his powers yet, though Sir Reginald and I have discussed his ideas. Telekinesis has recently been ruled out by Master Hargreeves, as the boy reached six months old with no signs of the power. Only truly listens to Nanny Margaery, and only plays with Numbers One or Seven. Attempts to bond further with the other children shall be encouraged._  

 

A few seconds passed by Five in a quiet, wasteful sense of wonder, where he simply stared at the paragraph after the words had told him their secrets. He marveled at his apparent fondness of Seven from the very start; he despaired for the relationship that could have blossomed between twins, but instead it was hidden and likely discouraged. Bizarrely, he wondered what age his eyes had finally settled into their familiar green. Did he and Luther look more alike when their eyes were similar colors? 

 

Five pressed on, compartmentalizing that headache for another time. 

 

 _Number Six:  Born October 1_ _st_ _, 1989, in Hereford, England. Born to a painter. Black hair, brown eyes. The most curious and eager of boys at ten months. The second to manifest his powers, after a horrible tantrum he threw at eight months old. Fond of all the nannies (they have express orders to retrieve either Master_ _Hargreeves_ _or myself if he grows too agitated and cannot be settled; it’s best not to risk another innocent life, Sir Reginald and I have agreed). He’s taken to following around Number One, Sir Reginald, or myself._  

 

 _Number Seven:  Born October 1_ _st_ _, 1989, in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Born to a schoolgirl. Blonde hair (will likely darken), brown eyes. The third to manifest her powers; began using loud, building noises to channel her soundwave manipulation; when upset, has broken windows and glassware. Prefers Nanny Ellis, for whom she behaves well and does not destroy things. Plays well with all of her siblings, but only seeks out Number Five or Number Three; does not respond well to Master Hargreeves._  

 

Five stared at the small ink blot beginning the word does in the last sentence, recognizing it for the hesitation that it was. In fact, Five could almost imagine Pogo sitting at his desk writing this. He could picture Pogo’s long fingers cradling the expensive fountain pens he favored, paused as the ink slowly seeped into the paper to form a perfect little circle. Why wouldn’t Pogo hesitate to put in writing that one of Reginald Hargreeves’  _seven superpowered children_ seemed disinterested in his self-appointed authority? That not only implicated poor parenting from the father of the children, but also insulted the Master of the house by pointing out his lack of respect or control. It was important enough that Dr. Pogo ensured there was notation of it, in the end. Vanya must have been quite the rebellious little toddler. 

 

He imagined that she could have been, with powers. 

 

And he wanted to know where those powers had gone, why they weren’t spoken of, if  _they_ were what had blown up the sound room. Five found an answer, finally. It was an answer that felt more like a punch to the gut instead of a sought-after accomplishment. For years, Vanya had been just as special, as powerful, as the rest of the Umbrella Academy – and the whole while she was shunned for not having a power. Their entire lives (most of their lives?) they’d been lied to about so many things. Luther and Five were twins, Vanya was as extraordinary as Five had always thought her to be and  _more_. He had no idea what was going on anymore; he had more questions than answers every day, even with snooping and researching. 

 

Five felt his chest constricting too tightly for too long, remembered to force himself to breathe. He fought the urge to take huge, gulping breaths in the middle of this restaurant when he’d clearly been sitting still for ten minutes – not running a marathon. If he got too freaked out, there was always a chance his mark would transfer the panic to Vanya and cause her mark or maybe her powers to freak out, too. That didn’t need to happen when she was still probably painting lines of music on Klaus’s arms or talking to Diego about future band names. Besides, he still had a meal to pick up. 

 

Calming himself down was a difficult task. Anger reared blazing hot in his chest; confusion was clouding his brain nearly as bad as that last blunt he’d smoked with Klaus, the feeling nearly as tangible as the smoke that curled in his lungs and out his lips out into the night’s cold air. He tried to focus on the memory of that night on the fire escape. Klaus was a small furnace next to him, burning all his heat off into the darkness like he was trying to warm the entire town. He shivered so much it shook the step he sat on, the one below that Five occupied, and the one under that where all four of their feet fought for space. Four’s slippers knocked against his own socked feet anytime Klaus shook too hard or coughed too harshly or laughed too loudly. He’d dropped a pickle on Five’s shoulder and then plucked it right back off with an apology. Of course, then he popped the pickle slice into his mouth and swallowed it whole. 

 

The memory made Five grin a little, his hands releasing their death grip on the now-closed journal. He glanced at his watch. Still another ten minutes or so before he’d be retrieving the pizza. The book in his hands promised more information, more secrets, more betrayals. He wasn’t sure how much more he’d be able to take today, but the time the journal would be left alone was dwindling quickly. 

 

After the initial reports on the children, their progress was notated every few days, with an average of about six updates a month per child. Numbers Four, Six, and Seven were watched very carefully due to their budding powers. As Klaus developed his ability to speak, he began conversating with what Pogo and Hargreeves assumed were spirits. Some of the interactions were just the babbling of a toddler to an attentive ear, others ended in tears or frustration on Klaus’s part. A few times, the young necromancer was frightened to the point of screaming terror; one such incident incensed a young Seven so much she broke the all of the nursery’s windows. There were no more notes or hints that Six harmed someone else in his own tantrums or terrors, only one mention of a feral cat attacking him and meeting a horrifying fate. Ben escaped the attack with a few scratches and (apparently) a lingering fear of felines that Five suddenly understood. 

 

He’d read through the first two years of the children being adopted by Reginald by the time a waitress delivered three piping hot pizza boxes to his bench. Five carefully tucked the book away in his jacket and tipped the waitress with a small smile. She beamed at him in return. 

 

Five walked out of the door of Lazarre’s, feeling different, and turned the corner only to disappear. 

 

*****

 

“ _Hells_ yeah, Five bringin’ home the bacon!”  

 

Diego swatted Klaus on the arm to quiet him, but Five was preoccupied with the soft smile Vanya greeted him with. He placed the pizzas along the newspaper-covered table, ordering them by size and admiring the array of plates, napkins, and drinks that his family had set up in his absence. 

 

As soon as his hands were empty, Five made his way towards Vanya and allowed the other Hargreeves boys to dig into their early dinner. He spared them a fond glance before taking Seven by the hand and leading her towards the singularly intact sound room. She followed his long strides with her short, sharp steps and not a single look backwards. Once the door was closed behind them, Five dropped her hand and faced her properly. The smile on her face was replaced with a look of worry. He wished his news was nothing to worry about, no cause for the look he saw too frequently on Seven’s face when they were alone. 

 

He couldn’t lie to her, not Vanya, but he could placate her for now. He didn’t have all the information. The missing weight of Pogo’s journal – returned to the desk it formerly hid in – was a source of silent frustration for Five. He needed more time to pursue the book and find out all the pieces of the puzzle that had been scattered to the wind so none of them could piece it together. Vanya’s powers were gone (subdued? taken away?) for some reason, no matter how flimsy or well-meant, and they needed to know why. They had no clue what she was capable of, how her powers worked, or anything. They were in the dark, but Five was determined to drag these things to light. 

 

“I read a bit more of Pogo’s journal, and I found out some new things. We can’t talk about it with everyone so close. Klaus and Diego have a way of sniffing out secrets and making trouble out of nothing. I’ll come to your room tonight and tell you everything I read. If I can, I’m going to sneak a bit more reading in before they come back, too.” Five let Vanya absorb his words, watching her accept his deference of the conversation until later without question. He wondered if she would like that she has powers, wondered if she would realize how special she had been the whole time. A tiny part of him whispered that she could finally realize how pathetic Five was, to need her so much when he could do so little for her. But his mark – and her own that matched – and the affection in Vanya’s eyes reassured him that was nonsense. Five reached up and brushed a thumb along Vanya’s cheek in soft strokes. “I have some exciting news, too, you know. It’s not all bad.” 

 

She cracked a smile, mischief dancing in her eyes now. “And Luther being your twin is  _bad_ , inherently?” 

 

Five groaned. “Don’t tell me you’d be pleased if Allison was your twin sister,” he snarked, rolling his eyes and settling them on Vanya with Five's own amusement gleaming back. 

 

Seven laughed softly and turned her face into his palm. Her eyes slid from his before she placed a smiling kiss to the skin of his wrist and turned for the door. “Come on, Five. There won’t be any pizza left at this rate. We can talk later.” 

 

He caught up to her with just one of his much larger strides, throwing an arm around her shoulder to escort her back to the table properly. All of their brothers cheered his presence and the subsequent presence of pizza. Five took their thanks with all the grace of a peacock, preening under the praise until Ben landed a pepperoni to his cheek. The wet slap of pizza sauce humbled Five and brought a momentary silence to the table. It was broken first by Seven, laughing more uproariously than anyone had heard in years. Klaus was quick to follow and then it was everyone, all five of them cackling and slapping the tabletop or each other’s shoulders. 

 

There was hardly ever a moment of peace in the Hargreeves home. Five was pleased to see that wasn’t always a bad thing. 


	10. And heart like the Fourth of July

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Hargreeves children left alone for the day take pleasure in the absence of their father, but there's always his return to be concerned with.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Since we've last seen one another, I've had a birthday AND a cold. How exciting. There's a lot to this chapter, revelations and the like. I honestly had a hard time with the opening scene, because I'm not a fan of cliche teenage games myself (and wasn't, as a teenager) but really wanted to include that kind of bonding with the kids. Let me know how it read, please, y'all.
> 
> Chapter title from Fun. (and apropos)

“We should play truth or dare!” 

 

The gathered Hargreeves children sat around the wooden table, stomachs full and tongues sharp. Remnants of their celebratory feast littered the tabletop. Half of their chairs were draped with uniform jackets and ties, all of the children leaving their shoes in a jumble under the table they occupied. It was Four, interrupting a lively debate on the merits of Luther’s superpower in everyday life, that suggested they play a game. 

 

Five rolled his eyes at Klaus, polished off the last of his pizza crust and deadpanned, “What are you, thirteen?” 

 

“You say that like we’re forty,” Diego snarked back. 

 

“What, because  _you_ want to have to lick one of Luther’s boots or tell us about your first wet dream?” 

 

“Come on, Five,” Klaus whined, “don’t be so negative. It could be fun! And we did just help you repair the door you blew off and repaint the walls you scratched up,” he pointed out. 

 

Vanya was watching them all with a mostly blank, slightly amused look. She wasn’t used to spending so many hours crammed together in a room with a small herd of teenage boys. Unfortunately, Five was more than used to their antics; Seven still had more patience for them than Five did. He was trying, though. The hours of verging-on-crude jokes, friendly shoving, and occasional singing was grating on his nerves. 

 

“Five. Seven, what do you think?  Up for a game of truth or dare?” 

 

“I’ve never played before.”  She tilted her head and gazed at Five, her brown eyes just as soft as her smile. Seven turned the look on Klaus, who was beaming right back. Five’s heart thumped hard in his chest. Vanya was beautiful when she was so relaxed, teasing Four with an uncertain tone and saying, “You’ll have to go easy on me, Number Four.” 

 

“No m-mercy!” Diego decided. He drank the last of his lemonade and slid the glass to the middle of the table, where it clinked with the various other empty glasses the children had accumulated. “Ben, you in?” 

 

“Of course. I love getting a chance to embarrass you mouth-breathers. Seven excluded, of course. She’s decent company.” 

 

“Thanks, Six,” Vanya said wryly, over Four's wails of despair. 

 

“Who wants to start?” 

 

“Whoa, now, Benny, we can’t play in here. We need a setting that fits the  _mood_ , ya know?” He stood up and gathered the empty pizza boxes into his paint-splattered arms. With his prompting, the others gathered plates and cups and lemonade pitchers with only the pulpy remains sticking to the bottom. Klaus led them all from the room and down the halls. The line of children giggled, questioned, and complained all the way to the kitchen where Four oversaw the disposal of dirty dishes and takeout boxes. Then, they meandered their way to the main library. Klaus wound his way around shelves and desk until he reached a sunlit reading nook, plush sofas and a thick carpet hidden away in the west corner. 

 

Klaus and Ben worked in tandem, removing every pillow and cushion from the two sofas and piling them in the middle of the carpet. When the furniture was stripped bare, they turned to the others with self-satisfied smirks. Ben stretched out his arms and fell backwards onto the mountain of plushness. 

 

Over Ben’s laughter, Klaus announced, “And now, we have the right setting.” 

 

The teens spread out along the carpet, stretching out on top of the longer cushions or drawing a pillow to their chest to prop up. Five sat with his legs crossed atop one of the couch cushions. A few inches to his left, Vanya was sitting primly on a pillow, her legs tucked to the right with her socked feet stuffed under the cushion he occupied. Next to her was Diego, then Klaus, and finally Ben completing the circle with his seat on Five's right. 

 

“So who’s go-going to go first?” Diego asked as they all settled into their places. 

 

Klaus was lounging on a cushion and a pillow, laying with his head cradled in his palm, propped up on an elbow with one leg raised. He, of course, took charge of the game. “Well, Diego, going numerically would be no fun at all. Vanya doesn’t usually get to play in our reindeer games, so why don’t we let her go first?” 

 

His salacious grin grew with the murmur of assent from his brothers. Klaus turned his attention to Vanya to instruct her on the game. “Now, little sister,” and Five noted the interesting lilt of the Dutch accent Father disapproved of Klaus purposely using, “you pick someone and make them choose: truth or dare. If they’re feeling honest, ask them a question. If they’re feeling brave, make them regret it.” 

 

Diego laughed hard, caught off guard by Four's no-mercy instructions, and gained Seven's attention with the noise. When he settled down, she trained a small smirk at him. 

 

“Diego. Truth or dare?” And so the game began, with Vanya’s question. 

 

“Dare.” 

 

Vanya studied him thoughtfully, her lips pressing together and her hands coming to rest folded in her lap. The silence stretched on in a charged moment. All four boys in the room watched for a sign of an idea, a direction, in her expression. Seven gave nothing away until she opened her mouth to speak. Then, the playful glint in her eyes said it all. 

 

“I dare you to wear an outfit Klaus picks out for you.” She paused, allowing a few snickers from Ben and excited chatter from Klaus. “From Allison’s closet.” 

 

Diego’s neck and face flushed red, but he gamely got to his feet. 

 

“Oh, no need, Diego. I’ll bring the outfit to  _you_. However, I could use some help sneaking into our dear sister's room, if someone with say….teleportation powers, wanted to help me out in this time of need.” 

 

Five rolled his eyes at the excessive prose Klaus was known for. “Okay Klaus, but you’ve only got five minutes. We have a game to get back to.” 

 

“That means no fashion shows!” Ben called. 

 

Klaus turned to Ben with a look of hurt. The expression didn’t last long morphing into the beginning of look of surprise when Five grabbed his shoulder and blinked out of the room, Klaus never even noticing Five’s approach.  

 

The room was silent for the few minutes they were gone, Diego huffing in annoyance just once when he noticed Ben grinning to himself. 

 

Five and Klaus popped back into the room and brought the noise with them. There were leather pants draped over Klaus’s shoulder, two different shirts on his arm, shoes dangling from one hand, and an array of bracelets and necklaces on him arms. Diego dragged his hands over his face before allowing Five to drag him to his feet. Five clapped a hand on his brother’s arm and pushed him towards the challenge Vanya had chosen for him. Four wasted no time in dragging him off to face the music. 

 

As soon as they were out of earshot, Vanya whispered, “Are those the leather pants Dad let Allison keep, but never wear?” 

 

“From that photoshoot where we all looked like thrift shop vigilantes? Yeah.” 

 

“Oh, hell, poor Diego. There’s no way those pants are gonna be comfortable,” Ben chuckled. 

 

Five grinned at the thought, knowing how much Diego would protest the entire outfit Klaus had picked out for him. Diego would never know how lucky he was that Five had talked Four down from the silver stiletto heels Allison loved so much, all thanks to Diego commenting on stilettos at Griddy’s. “I think he’ll survive, even if we won’t let him live it down.” 

 

And after seeing the finished product, the Hargreeves certainly wouldn’t forget it any time soon. Diego walked back to the semi-circle of teenagers with no pomp and circumstance, no ceremony whatsoever. There was no need for a runway walk when every pair of eyes in the room was already in his direction. Klaus picked the leather pants Vanya recalled, shiny, black, and tight from waistline to ankle. It was paired with a long-sleeved fishnet shirt layered under a black tank top and a pair of combat boots that were almost certainly Klaus’s and not Allison’s. 

 

Five glanced at the amused glint in Vanya’s eyes, the little grin tugging up the corner of her lips, and figured she wouldn’t mind. 

 

Fixing each of his siblings with a hard look, Diego sat down. 

 

Or, tried to. 

 

The fierce glare that Diego had used on each of his siblings didn’t stop them from laughing hysterically as Diego tried to figure out sitting down in skintight leather pants. Only Vanya kept some manner of composure, hands covering her mouth and eyes twinkling with laughter while she kept her seat on the pillow. The rest of the Hargreeves were on the floor. Ben was gasping for breath, tears in his eyes. Klaus was all but howling as he rolled to and fro, presumably too amused to keep still. Five clutched his stomach, laying half on top of Ben and not helping said brother’s breathing abilities at all. Once Diego had given up his futile attempts at sitting how he pleased, he too ended up with his back on the carpet and his hands covering his face. His loud chuckles were hardly muffled, shoulders shaking with the attempt to suppress his laughter just a bit. 

 

When they all managed to compose themselves and drag their bodies back to their respective seats, Klaus wiped the tears from his face and said, “Alright, Diego. It’s your turn now.” 

 

“Alright,  _Benny_ ,” Diego began, throwing an amused look at him, “truth or dare?” 

 

Ben looked like he’d rather bury his hand in the sand than answer. “Truth,” he settled on. 

 

“Any luck finding your soulm-mate, yet?” 

 

All the eyes in the room were trained on Ben and he shifted uncomfortably at the attention. The book he’d plucked from the shelves on their back to the sitting area sat in his laps, one palm splayed out on the cover. His fingers tapped anxiously against the hardback novel, lips pursed as though he’d eaten something bitter. “No, not yet. Five, truth or dare?” 

 

All of the children collectively agreed to let it drop, an answer as simple as that. It was truthful. It wouldn’t change anything to pick at the subject. It obviously wasn’t something Ben wanted to talk about. So, silently but in accord, they moved on. 

 

Five sent Ben a wicked smirk. “Dare.” 

 

“I dare you to jump to Luther’s room and rearrange all of his space ship models.” 

 

“Oh, so, you’re trying to get me mauled, is that it, Ben?” 

 

“What Five? Too chicken?” 

 

“Shut the hell up, Diego, or I’m gonna push you off that pillow and let everyone watch you try to get up for the next forty-five minutes while I’m rearranging some toy planes.” 

 

“Ladies, please, you’re both daring  _and_ pretty. Now can we finish our game?” 

 

“Klaus, I swear to God...” 

 

*****

 

The game ended when they heard Mom calling that dinner would be ready in half an hour, each kid scattering in the direction of wherever they were supposed to be at this hour. Five laughed to himself as Diego struggled to his feet and attempted to start running, only to make it a few steps before stopping to adjust his pants with a frustrated growl. He made it out of the door in much less time than Ben and Klaus. Vanya side-eyed Five with a grin, sharing a laugh over Diego’s muttered curses fading down the hall. 

 

“And where are you off to, now, Seven?” Five got to his feet, helped Vanya to hers and enjoyed the small smile she gave him in return. 

 

“Here, actually. I'm scheduled to be reading a few chapters of my history textbook before dinner. What about you, Five?” 

 

He reached out and tucked a stray lock of hair behind Vanya’s ear, noted how long her bangs were getting. Her tiny smile widened. Five moved his hand from her face to her shoulder; he didn’t want to leave her, not when they had so little time alone as it was. “Pogo’s too busy playing chauffeur to be discussing the mathematics of freezing time with me, at the moment. I’ll go make myself look busy in some study or another, dirty up the chalkboard before Mom finds me.” 

 

“Or you’ll end up actually working and skip dinner,” Vanya mused. 

 

Five laughed, placed both hands on her shoulders and then a kiss to her forehead. Vanya lingered in his personal space as long as she could when he stepped back, all but following his step backwards to prolong their attachment. “I’ll be at dinner, I promise.” 

 

“I’ll be waiting.” 

 

He left her curled up on the couch, reading about the War of the Roses and tapping her fingers along the spine in time to the music she hummed.  Five took longer than usual to focus his energy on jumping across the house. He didn’t want to leave this moment, not when he didn’t know what the hell would happen in the coming days. He wanted nothing more to drop his hands, plop down next to Vanya, sling an arm around her, and stay there all night. But instead, he let his eyes linger on Vanya for a few long seconds and jumped to Pogo’s study. 

 

 *****  

 

Five kept his promise. He showed up to dinner. Vanya nodded at him as he sat down, the last to arrive. 

 

It was a quiet affair – the impending arrival of Reginald Hargreeves kept each of the children on edge and silent. Five forced himself eat, hands moving mechanically to push his food around or bring it to his mouth. He tasted nothing of Mom’s likely delicious meal. The sense of foreboding he’d felt earlier was nothing compared to the pit of snakes in his stomach now. Five managed half of his meal before being the first to excuse himself. 

 

He didn’t miss Vanya’s questioning glance, but he couldn’t bring himself to acknowledge it. 

 

Vanya waited an appropriate twenty minutes before leaving to go to her room. Five heard not only Klaus but also Ben return before Seven, and silently approved of her patience. She entered her room as if everything was normal, eyes flicking to Five seated at her desk only for a moment before the door closed. “You didn’t go to the library, Five,” she said, conversationally, before kicking off her shoes and sitting on her bed. Vanya tucked her legs beneath her, pressed her back to the headboard, and reached a hand out to Five. 

 

Her palm was turned up, fingers splayed out in invitation. Five slid his hand over hers, fingers curling around her wrist. 

 

“What did you find out?” 

 

“I’m going to tell Luther,” he sidetracked, “that we’re twins.” 

 

“What changed your mind?” Her eyes were soft and trained on him, unwavering. 

 

His fingers tightened on her wrist, and for half a second he wished her mark was there – on the pale skin stretched out before him – to reassure him. “What I read, before dinner. We have to be careful, Vanya, and we need help.” 

 

“Tell me what’s going on, then.” 

 

It was her insistent tone, abnormal for Seven, that shook him out of his fog. The numbness he’d forced himself into earlier cleared away. “You have to listen to me, Vanya, like about your mark. I know it’s going to be...shocking, what I tell you-” 

 

“Five.” 

 

And he felt, more than heard, her impatience. It pulsed under his skin. He knew could not lie to Vanya with the bond of their marks, knew he wouldn’t lie to her even if he could. But he also knew this wasn’t a conversation he was ready to have. He didn’t have all the facts – the motives and the details not written down in Pogo’s journal. 

 

“You have powers, Vanya, you’ve always had powers.” He ignored her expressions, flickering from shock to anger to disbelief, and charged on. “According to Pogo’s journal, you were born with the ability to manipulate sound waves. You were the third to show evidence of having powers. Growing up, you broke glasses and windows when you were upset, destroyed an entire nursery during a tantrum once.” 

 

 _Number Seven grew angry at Nanny Claudia today during nap time. She concentrated on the drill noises coming from the construction down the block, used her powers to throw Nanny Claudia across the room. Master_ _Hargreeves_ _said he would take care of everything once again, but shows no sign of stopping or changing her training. He rebuffed my attempts at convincing him otherwise. This is the third one. How many more?_  

 

“Your abilities are tied to your emotions. When you were four,” and all of his words left a coat of ashes on his tongue, floating down his throat and painting his teeth, “Dad realized he couldn’t control your emotions – or your powers. You were distracted during training and he reprimanded you. You lashed out, blew up a table full of wine glasses and cracked Dad’s monocle. He decided you were a liability. He locked you up for weeks, trying to find a way to reign in your abilities. Pogo developed a mood stabilizer; taken once daily, it would almost completely numb your emotions and therefore dampen your ability to manipulate sound waves. It left you emotionless, powerless. But Dad needed insurance that you wouldn’t destroy everything he was working towards. He needed to feel completely in control of the Academy.” 

 

 _Master_ _Hargreeves c_ _ould not be swayed. I tried countless times to hypothesize with him the possible side effects of his decision. He would not even be convinced of a slight rewording, insistent that any sort of “loophole” could result in tragedy._ _~~Vanya is only four, just a girl.~~  _ _Seven is too young to be manipulated in this manner. We cannot possibly know how this will affect her mind growing up. Nonetheless, we will bring Number Three to the anechoic chamber tonight. Number Seven will be under control by the morning, Master_ _Hargreeves_ _assures._  

 

“He locked you in an anechoic chamber while he tried to find a permanent suppressor. It’s completely soundproof. You can hear the blood moving in your veins, it’s so fucking quiet. Three and a half weeks. When Pogo finished the pills, Dad told him there would be another lock, so to speak, put in place. He brought Allison to where you were kept. She was four.” 

 

His fingers never wavered in their grip. Vanya’s had tightened considerably, even with her shaking. The tears in her eyes broke his heart. 

 

“You were  _four_ , Vanya. You were so little, so young. You couldn’t control your emotions because you were _four_.” 

 

Five wished he had focused on time travel so that he could go back, save Seven from everything their father was responsible for her enduring. He wished he could pluck little four-year-old Vanya from the living nightmare she didn’t seem to remember – the only reminder being her terrible claustrophobia, to this day. 

 

“He made Allison tell you that you were ordinary, nothing special about you whatsoever. Pogo tried to talk him out of it, say something more along the lines of being a non-superpowered human, but Father doesn’t budge. After that, you were released from the anechoic chamber and given the pills once a day. With Allison’s rumor and the pills, you had had no idea you had powers and no way to use them. Father kept you at his side, kept you close, kept an eye on you. He wasn’t satisfied for years. He was certain your abilities would awaken and that he wouldn’t be able to control them. For years, Vanya, he taunted you and insulted you to your face to make absolutely fucking certain you were too numb to react.” 

 

He hadn’t noticed moving from the desk, not until he was pushing Vanya closer to the wall and sliding beside her, back to the headboard and arms encircling Seven. She seemed numb now. All she did was cling to him and shake. He worried she couldn’t handle the information he’d uncovered, wondered if her powers were waking up meant her emotions were as well. She’d seemed more emotional, in a healthy way; he’d seen Seven annoyed and concerned, laughing and even teasing. That was much more than the barely-there smiles and agitation of Seven growing up. 

 

“It’s our marks, Five.” She’d stopped shaking in increments before she spoke, calming little by little. One of her hands moved from his chest to the back of her neck. He felt the brushing of her fingertips against her soulmark in a way completely separate from the press of her palm to his chest seconds ago. “I’ve noticed that I...feel more. Last year, when you came home with fractured ribs and looked a shove away from passing out, I was so  _furious_. I’d never been so mad, Five, not at Allison or anything. I wanted to scream and scream, you shouldn’t be breaking bones for Dad, Five. None of you should.” 

 

Her fingers were digging into her mark now, a heavy and heady pressure. Their marks weren’t glowing and yet Five had never been so aware of them before. 

 

“I guess there’s never been a case of misplaced marks on superpowered soulmates before,” he mused. 

 

Vanya chuckled under her breath. She moved her hand back to his chest and her head followed, tucking herself against his side. He closed his eyes and tried to focus on the warmth of her, memorize the scent of her shampoo and the rhythm of her breath against his collarbone. 

 

“You should ask Mom to trim your hair, Vanya.” 

 

The laugh his comment startled out of her was louder than the last, shaking her shoulders. “What, Five?” 

 

“Your bangs are getting too long; I won’t be able to see your eyes at all, next week.” 

 

“It has been a while.” 

 

“And it doesn’t take any time at all, with Mom. She’s like a hair-cutting machine.” His laugh was louder than Vanya’s snort. “And a dinner-making machine, a child-taming machine-” 

 

“With Klaus, she has to be,” Vanya interrupted. 

 

“Actually, Mom was made for you, but I don’t think we should tell Diego that.” 

 

“What are you talking about?” 

 

Five didn’t want to tell Vanya the worst of what her powers could do, not yet. “None of the nannies could handle your powers. You broke glasses like I change ties. Toddlers aren’t known for their even tempers, after all, so Hargreeves and Pogo made a nanny that could handle anything.” 

 

“Huh.” Seven, to his relief, looked thoughtful and not suspicious at the vague story. “You’re right. We shouldn’t tell Diego.” 

 

They settled into a comfortable silence. Five thought of their father returning home soon and hoped he wouldn’t require them to greet him in the lobby as he liked to do when he was feeling particularly pleased with himself. Vanya distracted him from his musing when she shifted, sliding her legs down the bed and dragging him down a few inches with her. When he was slumped against the headboard instead of sitting against it, Vanya tangled their legs together and curled an arm around his waist. She looked up at him from under her eyelashes. 

 

He felt his heart constrict, tied to every movement she made. 

 

“So what are we going to do, Five?” 

 

“We’re going to find a way to control your powers without the pills.” 

 

“I don’t think I should stop taking them.” 

 

Five flinched from her in surprise, brows drawn together in confusion at her words. “Why the hell not?” 

 

Vanya looked away from him. “If I’m already destroying rooms because you were talking to Luther, what’s going to happen when I’m not numbed by anything?” 

 

“That’s why we’re going to train you,” he argued. 

 

“And until then, I don’t feel comfortable having my powers uncontrolled.” She smoothed her hand along his side, moving from its place on his hip, along his ribs, and back again. “When I’m a little more trained, a little more confident in my own control, I’ll stop taking them.” 

 

He sighed, but trusted Seven. “If that’s what you want, then.” 

 

She returned her half-lidded gaze to him and Five forgot about sound waves and training once more. “Thank you, Five. You’ve done so much for me.” Vanya leaned up a few inches, pressing her lips to his cheek tenderly. His heart felt fit to burst. He could only tighten his hold on her and mourn the loss of her lips against his skin when she tucked her head under his chin. 

 

“I’m here to keep you safe, allow you to be yourself. We’re a matched set, Vanya. Nothing’s tearing us apart.” 

 

“Fierce Five,” she giggled. “My hero.” 

 

Something very fierce indeed washed over Five at her words, followed by a rush of wonderfully pleased pride. “Your hero?” 

 

He couldn’t be the hero Hargreeves was trying to mold him into, no more than Klaus or Ben could. He was glad, if nothing else, that Seven never had to experience the forceful guidance of their father. He had no interest in saving the day, beating up crooks, and smiling for the cameras. Even the fame and attention, which so many people spent their lives trying to achieve, was only an annoyance to Five. The only thing that mattered to him was Vanya. Being _her_ hero? 

 

“Yes, Five,  _my_ hero.” 

 

Without a doubt, he could be her hero. 


	11. You'll find us side by side

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A long talk between twins; Mom makes a roast; Five and Seven gossip over hot chocolate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This Luther scene took me....forever. It felt like a full month, on this scene. I like Luther - well, my Luther - but man. He's not the most fun to write. Other than that, enjoy some fluff and sweet things. It's a very dialogue-driven chapter, which is exhausting tbh.
> 
> Chapter title from MS MR.

The Hargreeves children were herded into the foyer to welcome their father home, as well as Numbers One and Three. 

 

An outing with the two golden children usually left Reginald in a quietly smug mood. Allison and Luther were nearly guaranteed to follow every order to the smallest detail, keep every word and reaction perfectly approved by their father. But instead of the pleased mood they all expected, Sir Reginald Hargreeves walked through the door with a stern frown and not a glance at the two children following him. Allison kept three paces behind their father with elegant, gliding steps betraying both the true length of her long legs and also the careful mask of calm she wore so well. Luther – in a shocking contrast – nearly slunk behind Reginald and kept his eyes planted on the floor. Missing his trademark confidence and soldier-straight posture, he was unrecognizable as their cocky Number One. 

 

Five watched this development very, very closely. When Hargreeves crossed onto the carpet in the middle of the foyer, Allison and Luther stopped at the edge. 

 

He did not pause heading towards the stairs, merely said over his shoulder, “Breakfast is at the usual time in the morning, children.” 

 

Every one of them watched as he left the room and, presumably, went to lock himself in his study for the remainder of the night. It was rare they saw him retire to his bedroom. That didn’t guarantee he wasn’t sleeping, or that he was even behind the large doors of his study, in Five’s opinion. He hadn’t had the chance to test that theory, yet. 

 

Mom stepped away from the wall she hovered by once Hargreeves’s footsteps had faded. She broke the tense silence with a smile and instructions to head to bed. “It’s bedtime, children. Your father is right. Breakfast will be at seven o’clock, with vegetable omelets, sausage patties, oatmeal, and an assortment of muffins. Goodnight, children.” 

 

A chorus of  _goodnight, Mom_ ’s followed her announcement and they all filed up the stairs in unison – save Five. He nodded to Mom, then Pogo, and took his leave. 

 

 *****  

 

He jumped to Luther’s bedroom with no hesitation, knowing that none of their caregivers were lurking in the hall to hear him appear in the wrong room. Five pulled the chair away from Luther’s desk and sat with a leg on either side, his arms folded along the top. While he waited for the sound of the door opening, he admired the rearranged space ships and shuttles dangling from the ceiling. Luther had an impressive collection and it had taken him some time to move them all around. 

 

Luther didn’t jump at the sight of Five waiting for him, but he did hesitate for the slightest moment in the doorway. Once the door was closed behind him, an annoyed look crossed him face and he folded his arms over his chest. Nodding his head towards the new arrangement of his collection, Luther asked, “Was it really necessary to come to gloat? And why mess with my things-” 

 

He froze again, this time in panic and not confusion. His eyes searched the dangling ships around the room before settling on a specific one. Five didn’t know what he was getting at; all of the models were perfectly safe and accounted for. He didn’t come to steal from Luther. His brother crossed the room determinedly, opening up the model he’d looked for and seeming relieved when he pulled something out of it. Luther opened his fist to reveal a little jewelry box. The sight left him with an expression mixed with relief and sadness. 

 

“Your models are unrelated to my visit, just a dare from Ben during a game. I’ll help you put them back where they were if you’d like.” 

 

Luther gazed around the room for a few moments and finally shrugged. “They look alright. I’m not picky about their places.” 

 

“No, apparently they just double as hiding places,” Five said, pointedly glancing at the box. 

 

“Forget about that. What are you doing in my room?” 

 

He waited for Luther to cross the room and sit down on his bed, sending Five curious looks every few seconds. Once he was settled, Five took a breath and reminded himself this was for the best. He hoped he wasn’t wrong about Luther, hoped that the tension he’d sense between his brother and Reginald would make Luther listen to him. “I found a journal that Pogo has been writing-” 

 

“Why were you snooping around in Pogo’s things?” Luther interrupted, frowning and brow drawn. 

 

Five scoffed. “I was not snooping around, Luther, I went to find Pogo and it was on his desk. Would you listen to me?” He shot a haughty look at his brother and settled back down when he noted the other boy’s slightly apologetic expression. “It’s a log, of sorts, detailing our growth under Hargreeves’s roof.” 

 

Luther seemed thoughtful, nodding at the information. “That makes sense. Pogo’s been around for longer than I can remember. He handles most of our lesson planning, too.” 

 

“This goes beyond lessons and powers. He makes note of who we talk to, what we talk about, when we step out of line.” Five watched Luther flinch the tiniest bit at that last example and filed that away for after his discussion. “The journal goes so far as to note our birth places and parents, in little detail.” 

 

“Did you come to tell me where I was born, Five?” Confusion colored his face. 

 

Fighting the urge to snort at Luther’s question, he shook his head. “Not exactly. But what I’m going to tell you, I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t read it in Pogo’s handwriting, dated before we were even a year old. I know we talked about how I’ve been acting differently towards Dad and Pogo; this is why. I need you to believe me, though, when I tell you.” Five swallowed the uncertainty in his throat and asked, “Do you trust me, Luther?” 

 

His twin’s stare was hard, calculating. It was a rare look for Luther, which made it all the more serious. “Why was your mark glowing? I didn’t know they could do that.” 

 

He immediately wanted to deflect the question, but this was obviously some sort of test Luther was placing before him in order to determine how serious he was. Five held Luther’s gaze evenly and tried to choose his words carefully. “I don’t know, not exactly. I think it has something to do with when I get too worked up, emotionally.” 

 

Luther kept his eyes on Five for a long moment before leaning back slightly and nodding. He looked at the box still in his hand and passed it to Five. Eager as he was to finish the conversation that brought him to Luther’s room in the first place, the new direction of their talk seemed just as important. “I’ve always known Allison was my soulmate.” 

 

Five opened the box at Luther’s gesture, listening as his brother kept talking. 

 

“When I saw my mark, I knew it was her. And she had the moon on her wrist, perfect for the Spaceboy who’d loved her ever since he could remember. There was no one else it could have been. A few days after we had that talk about how weird you’d been acting, I went downtown to clear my head.” He rolled his eyes at Five’s raised brow. “It's easier to sneak out when no one expects you to, and you don’t make a habit of it.” 

 

“Fair point.” 

 

“I was just walking to clear my head. I didn’t wear any of the uniform, tried to wear a scarf big enough to bury my face in. I just needed time to think, away from the house. It was before dinner, right before all the shops start closing. I walked past a jewelry store, looked up for the first time in a couple blocks and it was just...there. Sitting in a window display.” 

 

Five looked at the golden locket in the box he held, engraved with a gorgeously scripted _A + L_. It perfectly matched the soulmark on Luther’s arm. He put the lid back on the box and gently handed it to his brother. Luther’s eyes found the box and closed, tension curling in the way he hunched his shoulders. 

   
With a gesture to the space shuttle he’d retrieved the box from, Luther said, “I bought it and put it in the Discovery. Dad never said outright he doesn’t approve, but...” 

 

“He doesn’t have to. It’s in everything he does. He would have been happier if none of us had soulmates.” Five debated adding,  _Like Vanya_ , but didn’t want to be needlessly dishonest in the current conversation. 

 

Luther shifted uncomfortably. “I never said anything to Dad about it, but I know Allison’s my soulmate. She knows. We’ve...talked about it. But neither of us want to start that fight with Dad, and we’re only fifteen. Today, during the interview, they asked about our soulmates. Allison said she _liked the wait_ , thought it was _appropriate for her age_. Any other time we were asked about, she spoke... I don’t know, hypothetically, like she wouldn’t mind waiting for her soulmate to come around. But this time she just flat out denied she knew her soulmate, that I was right beside her. And I got mad. I told the interviewer I knew who my soulmate was and none of the other girls stood a chance because I already loved her. I never used a name, but the interviewer ate it up. Dad was furious. He threatened to sue if word got out about what I’d said; he was on the phone with a lawyer before we’d even left the lobby.

 

“But he never said a word to me. Never asked who it was.”  Luther set the box aside and dropped his face in his hands for a second or two, steeling himself to speak a truth he didn’t want to admit. “But he doesn’t have to ask, because he knows. We all know.” 

 

And the entire Academy and Co. did know the truth about Luther and Allison’s marks, even if it was a taboo knowledge. It was part of the reason Five and Vanya worked so hard to keep their own soulbond a secret. 

 

“We all know,” his brother reiterated, “and Allison still denied it. Dad won’t allow it.” Luther drew himself up to his full height and regarded Five silently. Self-pity still swam in his blue eyes, but he was no longer wallowing in it. Instead, Luther schooled his expression and said, “Just like he wouldn’t allow your bond with Vanya to mean anything.” 

 

“My bond with Vanya is different,” Five replied, a fierce attempt at nonchalance when his heart was frozen in his chest. There was no way Luther knew the truth, he assured himself. Number One wasn’t the observant type; nor was he known for keeping things to himself. 

 

“Only because her mark isn’t on her wrist.” 

 

Five felt his eyes close in desperation and his chest compress at the way he had failed to protect both himself and his soulmate. “How do you know about that?” 

 

“I was suspicious after your mark started glowing that day. You weren’t surprised, or even that worried about it. And you threatened me before I could say anything.” 

 

“I did not threaten you, Luther, but if you’d like for me to start...” 

 

“It’s a weird light, you know, that comes from your marks? It’s pale, but bright, almost like moonlight. I’d only ever seen a light like that indoors once. A few months ago, there was this crazy storm. There was the brightest lightning I’d ever seen and pounding rain for like two hours, and it kept me up. When it quieted down, I went to the kitchen to get a midnight snack. I passed Vanya on my way down the stairs. We just nodded at each other. She looked upset. I looked back at her, thinking about asking if she was okay. There was a weird light at the back of her neck. I remember how she used to leave the hall light on and thought maybe it was a glow-in-the-dark necklace. She was always afraid of the dark, and I didn’t get a real good look at it. But when I saw your mark glowing, I knew that light.” 

 

All of his evidence was fairly circumstantial. Luther hadn’t properly seen Vanya’s mark and could not outright prove that they were soulmates. But any hint of this to their father would mean the man investigating. It would only be a matter of a good look at the back of her neck for conformation. Their marks were quite clear. Despite this, it didn’t seem as though Reginald had any idea their matching soulmarks existed. Luther must have kept quiet, not telling their father about his suspicions. 

 

“You haven’t said anything to Father,” he settled on stating. 

 

“Why would I?” 

 

“To gain favor,” Five answered, immediately. “That’s what most people would have done. It may have even made Father look the other way the slightest bit regarding you and Allison, once you’d tattled on your miscreant siblings.” 

 

“I know what it’s like for Dad to disapprove of your soulmate. I wouldn’t wish that on even you, Five,” Luther deadpanned. 

 

“Alright. Vanya’s my soulmate. I’m not completely sure why our marks glow, but it usually happens when one of us is feeling something too strongly.” 

 

“How long have you known?” 

 

“I’ve always known.” Five let his sentence hang in the air for a moment, needing to apply to appropriate weight to his confession. Luther took it with the same seriousness he’d used when saying the same about Allison. “But I saw her mark the night we got them, when I went to talk to her about not having a mark.” 

 

“So, Allison was right, when she said there’s a chance it doesn’t appear on your wrist.” 

 

“Yes, it appears so. It’s very rare, and comes with unusual properties, or so I’ve read.” 

 

“Including glowing?” 

 

Five smirked. “Apparently so.” 

 

“I appreciate how honest you’ve been. I expected you to lie to me when I brought it up, at first.” 

 

“I thought about it. But I need you to trust me with what I’m about to tell you. Lying wouldn't help.” 

 

“Right. Some information about my parents?” 

 

Five shrugged, somehow still finding this the most terrifying part of their interaction tonight. While he wasn’t pleased that Luther knew the truth about his soulmate, he was also fairly convinced his brother wouldn’t be saying anything to anyone. It was true that Reginald openly disapproved of close relationships among the Academy members – romantic or otherwise – and any teasing he’d overheard revolving around Luther and Allison’s marks had been met with swift, stern punishment. If he cracked down that hard on idle gossip, Five imagined approaching him with evidence would be even worse. He trusted Luther’s reasons to keep quiet; he’d been given leverage in return, in the form of a hidden locket and a confession. 

 

“Not exactly,” he said, finally. “You know how Father traveled all over the world, trying to get all of the children born the same day we were?” 

 

At Luther’s nod, Five continued. 

 

“He was said to have met with something like thirty-three of the women who gave birth, and only managed to bring home seven children. Except he didn’t buy them from seven different families; he bought them from six.” A familiar tightness settled in his chest, but Five kept speaking as evenly as possible in order to finish his explanation. “There was a married couple in Bremen, Germany, and the wife unexpectedly gave birth to twin boys. Hargreeves brought these twin boys home and raised them the same as the rest of the kids he managed to get his hands on. You were one of the twins. I was the other one.” 

 

His brother was staring at him in absolute confusion, apparently still processing the information. Five hoped dearly he wouldn’t change his mind about keeping secrets now that this particular truth was out. He leaned heavily against the back of the chair and waited for his brother to react. 

 

“We’re twins?” 

 

The disbelief coloring Luther’s voice made Five laugh. “That’s how I felt. Vanya got a kick out of it.” 

 

“You told Vanya?” 

 

While his brother didn’t sound angry, Five was annoyed at his surprise. He gave Luther a look that expressed this and said, by way of explanation, “She’s my soulmate.” 

 

Number One seemed to actually take the time to mull over what Five and Vanya being soulmates meant – their closeness, the lack of secrets between them, a sense of intimacy missing with the other teenagers. “You must love her, then, if you trust her enough to tell her everything.” 

 

“Of course, I love her,” Five almost snapped, the weight of what he hadn’t yet told her settling low in his gut. In time, he told himself, he’d tell her every little detail; he wasn’t sure Vanya wouldn’t begin to fear the full scope of her powers. Besides, he had plenty of reading to do before he even knew every little detail. “Vanya is far more intelligent than she’s given credit for. She isn’t as insipid or ordinary as Father tries to paint her to be.” Nor was she as ordinary as he said, but Five kept that to himself. There had been more than enough secret sharing for the evening. 

 

“I never really thought she was. Dad just didn’t want us close to her.” He hesitated before asking his next question. “And she loves you?” 

 

Five imagined the question came from Luther’s own unstable relationship with his soulmate, but it wasn’t a question Five liked being asked nonetheless. He fought down his annoyance and said, “Yes. Vanya and I have an understanding,” he explained, carefully, “because we’re both aware of the consequences of Father finding us out. To me – before my ambitions, before the team, before myself – Vanya comes first. Lately, I’ve decided that the rest of you may not be as beneath me as I’ve previously thought.” 

 

Luther looked put out at the last part, but softened when Five gave him a teasing grin. A hunch lingered in his shoulders still, undoubtedly related to his own soulmate woes. “I sure hope we live up to that assumption, then.” 

 

 *****  

 

Five did not jump to his room, knowing sleep wouldn’t come easily after his unsettling heart-to-heart with Luther. Appearing, instead, in the empty den on the floor below the kitchen in order to make his way there. He left his twin’s room feeling conflicted. Luther hadn’t said much on their hidden relation; he didn’t seem upset by it, but he also didn’t seem overly enthused. Not that Five, upon first finding out, was terribly pleased. They found a common goal in bettering the Academy as a team. With what he’d discovered, Luther even had a unique insight on Five’s closeness with Seven and his desires to see her included in whatever the other Hargreeves children were doing. 

 

So, the talk with Luther hadn’t been ideal, but it certainly took a more positive direction than he’d anticipated. Five was still left with a churning stomach and the desire for uncomplicated company. 

 

He found Mom in the kitchen, where he had hoped she’d be, preparing a pork roast and humming softly. She smiled at him when he crossed the threshold. Five watched the way she picked up on his arrival, Mom’s entire body freezing for the briefest second, then relaxing as she turned her head to acknowledge him. There was the slightest mechanical sharpness to her defensive movements. It both unnerved and relaxed him, knowing he lived with something so deadly that would come to his defense. 

 

“You should be in bed, Five,” Mom chastised. “Is there something you need?” 

 

Five watched her as she spoke, her hands coated in a layer of spices as she rubbed the roast down. A large pan lay to her left, likely waiting for the roast as well as the bowls of chopped onions, carrots, and potatoes on the counter. Even if he’d needed something, he wouldn’t interrupt her in the middle of tomorrow’s dinner preparation. 

 

“I couldn’t sleep, wandered down for a cup of cocoa.” When she made to insist she make him one, he waved her off. “I can handle hot chocolate, Mom, don’t worry. Thank you for the offer.” 

 

“Of course, dear.” 

 

He moved around the kitchen, collecting a small pot and whisk first. Then, he was on to the pantry for cocoa powder, the refrigerator for milk and whipping cream, and the spice cabinet for cinnamon, vanilla, and salt. Mom stepped aside to allow him the sugar canister and Five went about crafting the perfect cup of cocoa. 

 

Milk set to boil, he busied himself making the whipped cream and was mildly surprised when Mom spoke up again. 

 

“Is there anything specific keeping you awake tonight, Five?” 

 

A million things came to mind; naturally, his twin and soulmate were at the forefront of his thoughts. Neither of those were topics he could casually speak with Mom about. Picking one that fit the image of himself he tried to portray to his caregivers, Five sighed and said, “My practice with time manipulation isn’t going as smoothly as I’d like.” 

 

The possibility of Mom relaying this information to Reginald – exaggerated though it may be, the worry was rooted in some truth – made shame boil in his belly. He shoved it down. Better Father think him less powerful than they hoped, if the other options were him finding out what Five had been too busy doing to practice properly. 

 

Mom looked at him thoughtfully, and not at all in the judgmental, disappointed way his father would have if he’d been the one to hear the confession. “Freezing time is quite different from traveling it, I imagine. You were focused on time travel for so long that it only makes sense you’d have difficulty studying a new topic. With dedication and the proper safety measures, I’m sure you’ll excel in everything you do, Five.” 

 

“Thank you, Mom. I hope you’re right.” 

 

Her words warmed him, soothed a worry he hadn’t thought important enough to voice with everything else going on around him. Five had initially wandered down to the kitchen hoping for either Pogo or Mom to be around. As he finished making his cocoa, he decided running into Mom was the best thing for him, tonight. He leaned in to kiss her cheek before he left. Hands still occupied with the roast, she gave him a sweet smile and bid him goodnight. 

 

 *****  

 

The final jump he made for the night still didn’t land him in his bedroom. He’d spent too many hours today in turmoil over so many things. Five was exhausted and only wanted a decent night’s sleep. 

 

Seven was awake, sitting against her headboard with the little Walkman he’d bought her a few Christmases ago in her lap. He could hear the rise of a tinny orchestra coming from her headphones. She smiled at him, hand moving to pause the disc she’d been enjoying. Vanya removed the headphones and patted the bed next to her. He sat the cocoa on her desk and slid beside her, fitting perfectly by her side. Five curled an arm around Vanya’s shoulders, turning his head to bury his face in her hair. 

 

Her laugh was half-muffled by his tee shirt. Seven shifted, uncovered her face, and asked, “What brings you here?” 

 

“I brought hot chocolate,” he explained into her hair. 

 

“You can’t bribe your way into my bed with delicious drinks, Number Five.” 

 

He pulled away from her in indignation before he caught the teasing look in her eyes, her deadpan a little too emotionless for comfort. Five scowled, used his free hand to grab the mug and take a big drink of the proffered cocoa. The mug was returned to the desk next to him and he returned his eyes to Seven. He licked the whipped cream mustache away with the same scowl he’d given her before drinking. 

 

Vanya’s schooled expression melted into a twisted grin as she tried not to laugh out loud at his antics. 

 

“I’m well aware that a lady of your...caliber requires the proper wooing, Vanya. A simple warm drink won’t do.” He leaned closer to her, catching her eye and pinning her with his stare. Teasing went both ways, he mused. “It will take years, and the careful nourishing of a loving relationship built on trust, equal footing, and communication. And we have a lifetime for me to accomplish this.” 

 

Seven gazed back at his with heated eyes and leaned forward ever so slowly. One of her hands rose from the bed towards his face and Five smirked. 

 

When she grabbed the hot chocolate and took her own long drink, that smirk was mirrored on her face. She laughed at his disbelief, whipped cream on her nose and tears in her eyes, before handing him the mug. “Don’t worry, Five, we have time.” 

 

They finished the drink over a whispered conversation about Luther’s reaction to Five’s news. He told Seven everything Luther told him – from the not-quite-fight with Allison to the discovery of their soulbond. She worried about the knowledge in Number One’s hands, and Five worked diligently to explain every scrap of blackmail he could possibly have on Luther to prevent him from leaking the news. Reassured, impressed, and amused by his assessment of the potential situation, Vanya admitted that it seemed likely he would keep his word. Five understood her hesitation in believing their father’s favorite child. 

 

Five did find his way into Vanya’s bed that night, innocent as it was. She fell asleep with her head in his lap and his hands in her hair. She was listening to the same concerto he’d interrupted with his arrival; he’d simply been relaxing in her presence. 

 

He removed her headphones and put the Walkman away, shifting both himself and Vanya into more comfortable positions for the night. When he finally fell asleep curled around her, it was the calmest he’d felt in days. He let his breathing even out into the same pattern as hers. She nestled closer to him in her sleep and Five closed his eyes. 


	12. When the moon found the sun, he looked like he was barely hanging on

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Five needs a nap.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So my entire outline for this chapter (and the next several) got jumbled around because I am...too wordy, and wanted some pining to go on in this one. Half of the plot progression got shoved away for now but enjoy the tension! Enjoy the drama! Enjoy the childhood trauma!
> 
> Chapter title from Panic! at the Disco

Five’s pretty sure his left leg was asleep, fighting for space as it was with the right in the little room between Diego and the car door. The aforementioned brother had his head on Five’s shoulder and he was snoring soundly. One of the knives strapped to Diego’s thigh was digging into Five’s very much awake right leg. He attempted to shift to the left, molding his side to the door and putting his arm by the window, then sighed in relief when the hilt fit back against Diego’s ridiculous leather pants. Drowning out Luther and Allison’s chatter, Five settled in to rest his eyes for the remained of the ride. 

 

Caught somewhere between sleep and wakefulness, Five hoped for a few hours of sleep once the mission was finished. It wasn’t rare for the Umbrella Academy to be pulled from their beds at all hours of the night – though it was rare indeed for them to be allowed a lie-in afterwards. Hargreeves didn’t often slant the rules, not about anything. 

 

Five wished desperately, for just a moment, that it was Vanya leaning close enough her breath fanned across his neck and her pretty blue sheets beneath his hands instead of the car’s interior and his uniform’s pants. 

 

It was a stroke of luck that he hadn’t been in Vanya’s bed when the Academy’s alarm began blaring. In the last few weeks, he’d taken to spending more and more nights in Seven’s room. He found it much harder to drag himself from sleep and rush into his uniform and domino mask when he’d climbed out of her bed than his own. The cold, unwelcoming aura his bed had taken on ever since Seven allowed him in hers kept him sleeping down the hall more often than not. And Vanya seemed pleased enough, their strengthening soulbond only flourishing under the intimacy of being so close. 

 

Half of the time they stayed up discussing everything from Seven’s music to training Seven’s powers. The nights added a new closeness between them that Five reveled in. He loved being able to listen to her talk about whatever came to mind, the simple freedom of easy conversation; the dead of night gave them cover enough for this freedom, a cover that no other room in their home or time of day offered. She could ask anything about his training or theories without hoping no one heard how interested she was in his abilities. Between the soft blue sheets, in the smallest bed room in the house, no one could criticize or question their closeness. 

 

And Five found that he often wished to be close to Vanya. She’d taken to being more open and careless with her casual touches. Any time they were alone, it was common for her hands to find his shoulders, arms, face, or leg depending on what they were doing. She frequently grazed her hands over him in greeting – a touch to the shoulder as she sat down beside him, or her hand resting briefly against his cheek when he appeared in her doorway. Unlike when others touched him casually, Five did not recoil or stiffen. He looked forward to each and every light press of Seven’s fingertips or caress of her palm. Hell, he’d even lean into her touch like an affectionate cat, all but pressing for more and purring at her. But Vanya mirrored his eagerness, in her own way. When they’d exhaust their throats whispering for hours and muffling laughs, he would wind his fingers through the ribbons of her hair. He loved the cinnamon color of her hair, how pin straight and soft it was in his hands, and she loved his attention to it. Five appreciated her soulmark even more for forcing her to wear her hair down at all times. He could reach for it while they were studying, talking, planning, reading. Mid-discussion, he’d reach over and twist a strand around his finger, eventually progressing to running his hand through her hair in luxuriously slow strokes, and Vanya would hum and close her eyes to whatever book or sheet music she’d been studying before. 

 

Sharing her bed brought out the same neediness for affection they seemed to be developing. It felt natural to sleep with his arms around Vanya, her head resting on his chest, their legs a tangle of pajama patterns. Some nights, it took nothing more than matching his breathing to hers for Five to fall asleep. Gone were the early mornings he’d retire simply to rest his eyes, pages of math scattered on his desk from the sleepless hours being worked away. Five fell asleep reading one night, so Vanya’d laughingly put his book away and tucked the both in, she reported the next morning. 

 

He believed it simply for how well he felt waking up next to her, refreshed and rested like he’d never been sleeping on his own. Five awoke in better moods and with more energy. He’d stopped skipping breakfast, ate enough that Grace never commented on how much energy he burned training. There was more than just the physical aspect of sleeping with Seven that drew him in – though that could almost be considered the only downfall to the arrangement. 

 

Five refrained, months ago, from properly kissing Vanya. He refrained every evening from kissing Vanya. He refrained every morning from kissing Vanya. 

 

The closer they became, the harder it was to convince himself that he made the right decision. His soulmark sang with joy that they were together; his very blood surged with some ancient power, some heady knowledge, when she touched him. The same reactions showed in Seven when he got too near, as well. He watched her breaths turn shallow and quick the more insistent he was with touches. Any kisses he bestowed upon her – from her hands to her cheeks, upon her forehead and, once, at the base of her throat – set her heart racing as fast as his own. 

 

All it took to restrain himself was the reminder of Pogo’s notebook, the manipulations and secrets that needed uncovered before he did anything selfish. Vanya needed training, first and foremost. 

 

The tension remained, effort from holding back coiled in every muscle. It was there when he laid down beside Seven, there when he opened his eyes to the sound of her breathing and the warmth of her hold. It was there every night he sneaked past all the precautions Father laid to make sure nothing of the sort would happen. And before a couple of years ago, it wouldn’t have been able to happen. 

 

Five rejoiced when their father halted his sleep monitoring, removing the machines and wires from every child’s bedroom during their lessons and only making an offhanded announcement about it at lunch. He’d there was little more data he could collect from their in their sleep. The rest of the Hargreeves knew that was code for, “I’m quite tired of Klaus trying to masturbate discreetly while wearing monitors for both his heart rate and his brain activity.” 

 

Five’s train of thought stopped short. He opened his eyes and glanced around the car, at both the bench seat he occupied and the one across from him. 

 

Luther and Allison were whispering to each other, the hissing quality of their voices and Allison’s accompanying sharp hand gestures making it seem argumentative. Diego still drooled upon his shoulder, dead to the world, while Ben stared out the window on the other side of their sleeping brother. The seat beside Allison was empty, as one the one beside Pogo, 

 

Both Klaus and Reginald were missing for this mission. 

 

Pogo made the announcement their father was too caught up in his work to accompany them, which was not usual for Reginald Hargeeves. He had missed everything from meals to missions to celebrations in order to hole himself up in his study. While it was rare that he let Pogo and Luther lead missions, it wasn’t unheard of. 

 

An Academy member missing a mission? 

 

 _That_ was unheard of. 

 

 *****  

 

The majority of the mission faded into a blur for Five, once it happened. He’d been pulled from his musings on Klaus’s whereabouts abruptly, the sound of gunfire breaking the silence of the night. 

 

The robbery they were investigating occurred in a bank a few blocks down from where the car was at when the shots sounded. There weren’t supposed to be any overnight tellers or customers in the bank, just a lone security guard. 

 

Five hesitated for half a second, then geared up to jump to the bank. “Luther,” he barked, holding out one of his hands in the space between their seats. Blue spatial energy crackled between them, illuminating Luther’s surprised expression in the darkness of the car. 

 

His eyes lit up in excited recognition, Luther grasped Five’s forearm with a sturdy grip. 

 

Asking Luther to join him had been both calculated and spontaneous, risky but surely a safe choice. Plus, the beginning of Allison’s furious screeching was worth it all. 

 

But that had been...some time ago. He and Luther jumped right outside of the looming brick and glass spectacle that was the main branch of North Eastern Bank in the city. They were surrounded by officers immediately, debriefed by a chain-smoking sergeant on the situation: twelve armed men inside, holding the branch manager of the city’s five different NEB. He’d been kidnapped straight from his bed across town; the men locked the man’s husband and three children in the wine cellar of their home, where they remained for an hour before the family’s mastiff broke the door to the cellar down – along with the doors to the closet he was locked in, and the room the closet was in. (Five briefly considered getting a mastiff in the future.) The hour between the kidnapping and police being notified gave the group time to break into a smaller bank of the branch, using the manager’s access card and code to rob the place quietly and efficiently. Police arrived on the scene in time to rush the security guard to the hospital, but not in time to stop the men from their next target. 

 

They arrived at the main branch of North Eastern next, using a side entrance and causing a raucous on the freshly waxed floors. This location’s security was able to exit the building safely – along with the floor waxing janitor– and call the authorities before they were harmed. The guard never set off an alarm, giving the police a few minutes of surprise in which they’d attempted to enter through the back door. The gunshots Five and Luther reacted to were a product of that failed attempt. 

 

By the time he jumped himself and his twin to the women’s restroom of the main lobby, Five was expecting a fairly easy fight. They had the jump on the gunmen, distracted as the criminals were by the thought of the police and not a superpowered group of teenagers. He and Luther could take out the men in the lobby and main floor, then wait for the others before approaching the vault, and Allison wouldn’t even need to take care of their getaway vehicles in the meantime what with the police. 

 

It was a solid plan, he thought. 

 

Luther agreed, and cracked the swinging door to peer out into the lobby. He gave Five the signal for two men, at least, and inched forward to look for more. Just as he moved forward, the glass doors of the main entrance burst into a spray of glass-shards. Half of the Umbrella Academy came marching through the hail, Allison at the forefront. 

 

Bank jobs always made Five think of the Academy’s first mission, stopping a much less organized heist than the one on hand. Watching Allison all but skip to the man on the ground, blown back from his post by the lobby’s doors, and whisper in his ear only heightened the illusion. The sound of rapid-fire bullets followed the man down the hall as he ran off to do Allison’s bidding. Seconds later, six of his companions came storming in and everything became a blur. His siblings dived out of the way in the face of the rain of bullets, and Luther barreled out of the restroom and into the fray 

 

Five followed and time seemed to flow seamlessly as he ducked, weaved, and jumped. Ben darted past him as he made his way to Allison, jumping on one man’s back and ruining the perfect aim of Diego’s torso his gun had. The bullet went high, the man struggled with Ben on his back for a few seconds before slamming the butt of his gun into Ben’s face. Their heavy hitter was immediately down for the count, Five abandoning his path to jump his unconscious brother to Pogo’s side and returning with ferocity. 

 

Two knives whistled their way around him, finishing their song as they found their targets in a man’s shoulder and neck. He swerved around the falling body, finally reaching Allison’s side, and snagged her shoulder in one blue-sparked hand. 

 

He reached her in time to hear her say, “I heard a rumor you were really tired,” and watch her victim drop. 

 

Five jumped them away without time for Allison to protest. They landed behind a man wielding a handgun aimed at Luther. His twin was too occupied grappling with a huge, burly man looming a full foot taller than him. That didn’t deter Luther, if the heft of his punches said anything, but it prevented him from paying attention to his surroundings. 

 

Allison snarled, “I heard a rumor your heart stopped beating,” and they were on to the next target. 

 

Knives and bullets alike danced past them as Five jumped from one spot to another, traversing the lobby in hopes of rumoring an enemy out of the fight. Luther had a shock of blood running down his face from one eyebrow as Five moved past him, half of Diego’s sleeve torn away to reveal a gash on his forearm. Four of the men down quickly, two thanks to himself and Allison with one attributed to each of their brothers. Only Ben and Klaus were missing from their numbers. The confidence of outnumbering the enemy made Five sloppy. He jumped with Allison again, careless about what was coming towards their landing point. 

 

By the water feature on the east side of the lobby, Luther had just tackled one of the gunmen mid-shot. The bullet was off trajectory and away from Diego, straying a few feet to the left. 

 

His fingers were numb and his chest aching from the rapid jumps, but there was no way Five would let Allison take a bullet for his mistake. 

 

Five threw his hands up in front of him, fingers splayed out and sparking blue, and used his hip to shove Allison aside. She stumped a few steps away, tumbling down to one knee and staring at Five with saucer-sized brown eyes. The bullet was heading straight towards him. He thought of death, of conquering time. 

 

All of the energy he had left was channeled to his fingertips. Five’s knees wanted to buckle and his heart wanted to stop. He thought of Vanya. 

 

As soon as the bullet came close enough, Five let the sparks come together. Electric blue engulfed the little metal projectile. The bullet slowed, froze. 

 

Concentration firmly on the sphere between his hands, Five kept it in place and slowly crouched down. He heard the distant thunk of a body on the ground and a distinct lack of gunfire. He kept his eyes on the unbroken sphere, unsure of whether the bullet would resume its path or drop to the floor. Once he was out of its path, he released the energy in his hands. Blue energy crackled and dissipated. He eyed the bullet carefully, watched it drop to the floor with an unassuming  _plink_ , and released the breath he’d been holding. 

 

He was knocked sideways unexpected, Allison’s arms wrapped around him like a vice, her excited chattering making no sense so close to his ear. Five tried to focus on the words of her incoherent babbling, tried to return her embrace. 

 

He felt moments away from collapsing. His arms were led, his legs were trees rooted to the very spot he stood. He also felt absolutely euphoric underneath the surface. He’d frozen a bullet! Five had thought himself weeks away from stopping projectiles, hadn’t even begun to practice with Diego yet. Nonetheless, he’d faced the challenge. Faced death, even, with a bullet in his face. 

 

Five felt a rush of pride, enthusiastic accomplishment, and then there was nothing. 

 

* 

 

“He won’t wake up,” Five heard Diego complain, though it sounded far away – or as if someone had put cotton balls in his ears. 

 

The ground beneath him disappeared. He felt himself being half-carried, half-dragged, shoes scraping the ground with every step he was taken. Five tried to help, attempted to right his feet beneath him, but the muscles in his legs didn’t even twitch to follow his orders. A grunt escaped his throat involuntarily. It fit his mood, groggy and annoyed as he was. Another noise, this time of protest, escaped him when he was mostly shoved into the backseat of the car. One of his siblings climbed in beside him, the others likely on the opposite bench seat, and he slipped back into the darkness drifting behind his eyes before the car door even closed. 

 

He half-returned to consciousness when they arrived home. Someone had wrapped Five in a blanket; the fabric was thick and comforting, if a little scratchy. He was grateful for the gesture and the warmth, as were his still numb extremities. Hands grabbed at him, gently dragging him to the edge of the seat before lifting him from the car. Immediately, Five knew that Luther was carrying him inside the house. 

 

Five wanted to make at the least, a token protest; he had no small amount of pride, and was able to take care of himself in nearly every other situation. But when even his eyes refused to open, he reluctantly allowed it. It quieted his groggy pride to think that he'd saved Luther's soulmate, so the least his brother could do was make sure he made it home safely.

 

He drifted on the brink of sleep as Allison and Luther assured Mom that he was fine, he’d _just over exhausted himself, we’ll get him to bed right away, Mom_. Both Diego and the conscious but wobbly Ben needed her medical attention that moment, anyway. 

 

The trip of the stairs kept him awake by sheer annoyance alone. If he’d had the energy to jump, he’d have done so straight from his brother’s hold. To Luther’s credit, he attempted gentleness – he just wasn’t that type of giant, Five supposed. 

 

When they reached the hallway of bedrooms, Five felt Luther stop short. His faltered step and sudden halt caused Allison to bump into his back. Her annoyed huff was the only thing Five heard for several moments. 

 

He’d almost drifted back to sleep when Luther began marching down the hall with purpose. “Watch the stairs,” he ordered Allison. 

 

“What?” Five wanted to sneer at her incredulous tone. 

 

“Al!” he barked. 

 

“What the hell, Luther?” Allison snapped, but Five could hear her footsteps retreat towards the hallway. 

 

Luther reached his destination, and Five never heard Allison’s footsteps follow. He felt Luther shift his weight, heard his sneaker thud softly against a door a few times. After a short wait, the door opened. 

 

“He’s fine, just overworked,” Luther assured in a rush. “Don’t freak out.” 

 

“Five,” she said, so softly, and he knew it was Vanya before she’d even spoken. Her hand cupped the cheek that wasn’t pressed into Luther’s shoulder. “What happened?” And that was new, a demanding tone of voice Vanya had not yet taken in front of him. 

 

“I’ll let him tell you all about it. He tired himself out saving Allison, but he’ll be fine.” Luther shuffled in the doorway, hands tightening their hold on Five briefly. “I’m taking him to his room,” he said, not unkindly. “I’ll do my best to convince Dad to let him sleep in. You’d best be out by sunrise, though.” 

 

Vanya heaved a great sigh, so much relief audible in one wordless expression. “Thank you, Luther.” 

 

Five heard Luther say something else, low and secretive, but he was too tired to catch it. Seven would stay with him tonight. He thought of waking up to her curled around him, fingers tangled in his pajama shirt as though it were impossible to let him go. The numbness from his hands and feet seemed to seep into his blood and his bones, traversing his entire body for the easiest possible transition into dreamless sleep. The last thing that crossed his mind was Vanya. He'd rest better knowing they were safe; they were together. 

 

 *****  

 

The sunlight was just creeping over the horizon when Five woke up. He unpeeled his face from Seven’s pillow and looked around. The starched cotton curtains lining his windows were drawn, the dawn filtering through them where it could. His uniform was strewn haphazardly around the otherwise clean room, shoes abandoned at the threshold and shirt on top of the desk. His pants hung from the laundry hamper by the closet as a lone attempt at cleanliness. 

 

His pillow lay forgotten on the floor not three feet away from his tie, which explained why he awoke to his face molded into Vanya’s pillow. It also explained the strong vanilla and rosewood scent. Vanya sat at the end of his bed, preparing to sneak back to her own room. When she saw his half-opened eyes and the hand he tiredly reached for her with, the tension left her face and she smiled like the sun had risen instead of Five. 

 

“I have to go soon,” she reasoned, halfheartedly waving one of her hands toward the window. He caught her hand, tugged her forward. Five’s heart beat sluggishly in his chest and he ached at their inevitable parting. But she came to him willingly at the smallest pull, pressing a kiss to his temple and then her face to his neck. He tried to keep his breath from stuttering at her touch; he couldn’t stop his muscles dancing under the press of her palm to his side. Vanya breathed deeply against his skin for a few long seconds. “Tell me about the mission.” 

 

He cleared his throat, the disuse and weariness making him a little hoarse. “It went sour pretty quick; there were too many of them and not enough of us. Four never showed up, and Pogo never mentioned where he was. Dad was said to be holed up in his study. I’d put money on him being wherever Klaus was last night.” 

 

She nodded a couple of times against his chest, as if in thought. 

 

“Ben took a pistol to the face and was down and out in the beginning; I took him to Pogo. When I got back to the fight, I jumped Allison around to rumor the men. I wasn’t... I wasn’t paying enough attention and jumped us right in the way of a bullet. I stopped time, stopped the bullet. A two-foot sphere of frozen space saved our lives.” 

 

Five felt the fear rolling through him in waves as he recounted the story. He told himself it was his own terror at the memory of how close he’d come to death, even as softened as his version of the story was. However, some part of him wondered if it was reverberating through his soulbond – if his terror mingled with Vanya’s and grew, echoed through their connection and feeding off the other. In the moment, when he’d had to trust his abilities to save his life, he hadn’t felt this level of fear. 

 

“You kept yourself and Allison alive? By freezing the bullet?” Buried under the naked fear in Vanya’s voice, Five could hear the awe and admiration. She tightened her grip on him, kept her face close his skin while speaking clearly enough to be heard. 

 

His own hands gripped her closer, one buried in her hair and the other around her waist. There was too much space between them for how close he’d come to never touching her again. Five took a shaky breath and replied, “Yes, and now she owes me a life debt. I was thinking her first home. Any firstborn child of hers will likely have Luther’s genes.” 

 

“You and Luther should have fairly similar genetics, as twins, isn’t that right?” 

 

Five could have kissed her for her falsely innocent tone alone. He quietly allowed the way she ran her hand along his ribs and the way it paused in the sweep inwards she did to reach his heart. He did not comment on her hands never relinquishing their solid grip until she’d climbed from the bed. She returned the favor, relishing in his teasing and equally possessive hold. Vanya left him with lingering hands and a feather-soft kiss on the corner of his mouth, though he’d slipped back into sleep minutes before she pried herself from his arms and crept out the door. 

 

He felt too tired to rise from his bed, infinitely too exhausted to move even a single limb, by the time he closed his eyes again. Seven spoke to him in her amused whispers. He could picture the way her lips curled at the edges even against the darkness of his eyelids. Five dozed off to the sound of her voice, hoping this time around he’d find a respite for the weariness seeping into his very bones. 

 

 *****  

 

Mom called his name in her sugar-sweet voice, pulling him from sleep like cotton candy from a stick. Five came to, registering the mid-afternoon sunlight and the tray piled high with food Mom had sat down on his desk. The desk and his room were clean of any stray uniform pieces, likely tucked into the laundry hamper where they belonged. He deduced it was past lunch time. Five turned his inquisitive green eyes to Mom, all traces of sleep gone from them quickly enough, and nodded to her. 

 

“Good afternoon, Five. I trust that you’re well rested by now.” 

 

Sitting up, Five said, “I imagine so,” with a bit of a sardonic drawl and accompanying grin to show Mom he only meant to tease. “How late is it?” 

 

Mom’s smile dimmed a tad, her tone taking the slightest robotic inflection as she answered, “It is one thirty-three in the afternoon. The weather is cloudy, with cold winds from the east and a low of 54 degrees tonight.” 

 

“Thank you, Mom.” He looked at the sunlight coming in through the window again and frowned. “I missed training, and half my lessons.” 

 

Sitting the tray on his lap, Mom hummed an agreement to his statement. The soup, grilled cheese, and freshly diced fruit she’d prepared made his stomach growly unexpectedly. It was always jarring how hungry he became after using his powers extensively; he could rival Luther in his appetite some days. Mom snapped a napkin into wrinkle-less perfection and smoothed it across his lap above the tray. “Your father cancelled both training and lessons for the Academy today. Once you’ve eaten and dressed, he would like to see you in his study.” 

 

Five fought the jolt of surprise and fear that ricocheted through him at Mom’s offhanded command. The dread crawling down his spine didn’t stop him from thanking Mom properly and asking, “And the others? Ben? Diego? Wasn’t Luther’s face covered in blood at some point?” 

 

“Diego received six stitches; the gash on his arm was quite deep in the center, but it will heal well. Ben has a slight concussion from the blow to his head – nothing to worry about – and is spending the day resting as you are.” 

 

“No one else was hurt?” Five pressed, unsure what happened after he’d passed out. 

 

The smile on Mom’s lips thinned, more mechanical than maternal. “None of the other Academy members sustained any injuries during the mission. Now, eat. You lost a lot of energy yesterday and can’t be skipping meals.” 

 

“Yes, Mom. Thank you.” 

 

As Mom crossed the room in her practiced steps in pretty heels and closed the door behind her, Five dug into his breakfast with vigor. His mind was whirling with everything Mom had not said: why Father wanted to see him, where Klaus had been, and – it seemed likely – someone who wasn’t on the mission sustained an injury. He knew Vanya wasn’t ill or wounded. He needed to find Klaus and have a conversation with his brother. 

 

Though his brother’s whereabouts occupied his mind, once Five finished eating he forced himself to shove all thoughts of Klaus to the side until after his meeting with his father. It did him little good to enter a conversation with Reginald Hargreeves unprepared. Their father lashed out at the smallest hints of disobedience or dissonance. To him, it mattered little how his charges felt on the matter so long as they gave the image of a perfectly put-together team. 

 

Five took the stairs two at a time, amusing himself with the thought of how much better the team was doing since he’d stopped listening to his father’s advice on teamwork. 

 

He stood before the double doors to the study and tried to breathe deeply to expel the invisible vice grip around his ribs. His hands and feet were no longer numb, the acts of waking up and taking care of oneself working the feeling back into them. One fist knocked evenly on the wood doors; Five focused on keeping his other hand and two sneaker-clad feet still. Fidgeting was a telltale sign of nervousness or guilt and he had no discernible reason to feel either. 

 

Pogo opened the door and greeted him with a genial smile and gentle clap of affection on the shoulder. He led Five to a seat before his scribbling father, lost in his rapid writing for several minutes while Five kept his toes from tapping. Pogo did not sit; he stood by the window and admired the long plant hanging before with deep concentration. His large hands carefully moved the leaves this way and that to examine the base of the plant. Reginald’s pen did not cease for a second. 

 

After nearly five minutes of this, Five wondered why he’d been brought in here to watch their inane activities when he could still be sleeping. His stomach growled softly and he amended the thought. A trip to the kitchen would be in order first, then sleep. 

 

When the scratching sounds of Hargreeves’s missive stopped, Pogo casually withdrew his hands from the plant and stepped closer to the desk. 

 

“Number Five,” said his father in that grave, clipped voice. 

 

He waited. 

 

“Upon my arrival at breakfast this morning, I was displeased to see both yourself and Number Six absent from the table. Before I could inquire about it, Number Three approached me. She was weeping and fearful; she detailed me to the mission the Academy undertook this morning and the dangerous experience you two shared.” 

 

Five wanted to drop his head in his hands and tune Reginald out. Dangerous experience? Nearly getting shot in the head was considered merely a dangerous experience to the teenagers who talked to the dead and tossed cars around. He knew their father had a lack of concern for their safety – but their very lives? His hands folded carefully in his lap from their places on the chair’s arms. It was a small, defensive gesture compared to the large, violent gestures he’d like to have made. 

 

“Pogo informed me of the state you were brought home in, physically exhausted to the point of unconsciousness. Now, while your efforts in keeping your team safe were admirable,” and Five clamped his teeth over his tongue to keep it from even twitching, “it is inexcusable to allow yourself to expend so much energy that you’re unable to complete the mission.” 

 

He wondered, for a brief and unexpected second, if this was some fucked up way of Reginald telling him he was worried about Five, didn’t think he should be pushing himself so hard. But even if it was, it wouldn’t matter. Five nearly took a bullet for his mistake and for his sister. He used a new power for the first time in a combat environment. No one on the mission was severely injured. The hostage was returned to his family and the money to the banks, Vanya’d told him. Five wanted to scream himself hoarse at this desolate, dispassionate man in front of him. He wanted to take the entire lecture without a hint of anger and then slam the door shut behind him. 

 

He stood, clearly not what he was meant to be doing with the pause in conversation. Reginald didn’t look surprise that Five refused to hang his head and take the tongue-lashing. He stared at Five with clear, cold eyes. When his father made no move to continue speaking, Five filled the silence. 

 

“I’ll work on my stamina for holding larger and longer-lasting time spheres. It’s the next logical step in furthering my powers, and the training is simple if tiring. But I am the reason your precious Academy is still standing today, aren’t I?” The arrogance in his voice made him wince, but his blood was pounding with the feelings of escaping death and the anger of being blame for not doing so well enough. “Without me, how many of your team members would have made it home this morning?” 

 

Pogo stepped forward, tried to place a hand on Five’s arm and defuse his rising voice and swelling rage. 

 

Five shrugged it off and moved towards the door, caught between it and the desk in his need to monologue his fury. He pressed shaking palms against his chest and smoothed the vest of the Umbrella Academy into neatness. He wondered how if all of the children in the house – despite being whatever type of not quite human they were – could develop, experience, and express emotions, their father – who was surely the same sort of different – couldn't do the same? How could Reginald not understand the righteous anger and injustice he caused with his words? “I saved Allison’s life. I saved my own life. If one of us had died, in that bank – if one of us had taken a bullet to the brain and ended up nothing more than a tragic splatter on Venetian tile-”   
 

And that seemed to be the boiling point. Reginald stood, palms flat on the desk in an authoritative stance and his tone an absolute roar. “Number  _Five_!” 

 

“-do you really think Luther or Diego would have been able to pull it together and finish the mission? Do you think Luther wouldn’t drop everything and sprint through a mine field to get to Allison’s side if she’d been hit? Do you think Diego could look at me ten feet away from his opponent, eyes unblinking with a hole through my head-” 

 

“Number Five that is enough-” 

 

“-and finish the fucking mission?” Five snarled, because not even Pogo would stop this. This was more than a long time coming and so much less than what he deserved to be able to tell his father. “Me, unconscious but alive, and your team, shaken but unharmed. That was the best possible outcome of the situation. 

 

“I will continue my training. I will push my powers and myself to the limits to see what I can do and save who I can save, but I am not doing this on your word. My actions are not a grab for attention or a search for approval from some cold, distant mad-scientist-in-a-tower father figure that can’t even be relieved we made it back alive from taking down twelve armed men twice our age and size.” He raised his eyes to level Pogo and then his father with a chilled look of determination. “Nothing I do is for you. It’s all for them,” he said, gesturing to the latest photo of the Umbrella Academy hanging above his desk, the mark on his arm unseen but very much felt, “to make sure you don’t get them killed or push them too far.” 

 

And he left, the doors swinging shut behind him as he hoped his father wondered if that meant Five had been pushed too far. 


	13. I should've worshipped her sooner

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So sorry for the wait y'all. Allison is difficult to write, when she's between her self-centered and repenting stages. Also, I moved quite suddenly but now my dog has a full backyard and I have so many boxes to unpack! I hope this was worth the wait - there's a bit of fluffy Fiveya smattered in here because it warms my heart and sweetens the chapter-worth of hard discussions. Tell me what you think! With luck, the next chapter will come quicker. Also, do y'all want to see Dave? This is a fix-it fic, and Dave is set up to be Klaus's soulmate (obvs, his mark is dogtags) but do you want me to bring him in? I'm planning a series of short stories about the other kids' soulmarks (I thought, initially, one-shots, but then I started writing Luther's and it's a lot y'all), so he'll definitely be around for that - _after_ MBHBtY is concluded.
> 
> Chapter title from Hozier, my favorite fae.

Five rounded the corner to return to his room, blood still boiling and fists clenched at his side, and walked straight into Klaus. They were nearly the same height now, so it didn’t send Five tumbling to the floor like it might have a year ago. Standing in the middle of the hallway with heavy-lidded eyes and tousled hair, Four looked like he’d just woken up; he only blinked in surprise at Five once they’d righted themselves. 

 

“There’s the local hero,” Klaus teased, halfheartedly and with unfocused eyes. 

 

“I’ve been here all day,” Five drawled. He allowed his hands to relax, the fury to dissipate, and the fog of adrenaline to leave his brain. “Where were you last night?” 

 

A look of shock passed over Klaus’s face before it was erased just as quickly. “Must have slept through the mission alarm,” he said. The attempt at a grin Klaus gave him had Five grabbing his brother’s arm and marching them straight to his room. Equal in height but far reedier than Five, Klaus was forced to trot behind him with wide eyes and an open mouth. He tried to make an affronted noise at being dragged down the hall, but it died in his throat with a sharp cut of Five’s glare. 

 

Five kicked the door shut behind him and herded the quietly pouting Four to his bed. Klaus’s knees hit the mattress and the rest of him followed. He sat with his head hung low, hands just beginning to twist the sheets. Staring at his Klaus, Five was reminded of Vanya sitting in the same fashion two years ago, heartbroken at the thought she didn’t have a soulmate. He pulled the chair from his desk and sat before Klaus with a grim expression. 

 

“Where is he taking you?” 

 

Four very carefully did not react to the question, his muscles tensing only the slightest bit and easing slowly enough that Five wouldn’t have noticed the movement if not for his careful observation. He decided to rephrase the question. 

 

“Where is our  _father_ ,” Five spat, “dragging you off to in the middle of the night, Klaus?” He shot out a hand, grasping Four’s wrist and exposing his arm for Five’s inspection. Klaus was thin, showing symptoms of a poor diet and lack of rest, but the only other worrying features Five found were the ragged nails and scabbed fingertips on his hands and the rasping quality to his voice earlier. “If he’s hurting you-” 

 

Finally, Klaus reacted. He snatched his arm away and laughed out loud. The nearly mad cackle that crawled its way from Klaus’s throat took Five by surprise, but the tears that slipped down his cheeks after it began didn’t. Five froze as something Klaus had been holding onto snapped; his tears and laughter mingled loudly on the silent residential floor. When Four’s hands moved from twisting in the sheets to twisting in his hair, Five jumped from his seat and untangled his brother’s hands. 

 

“Klaus,” he stated, firm and calm with the hopes of stopping the spell Klaus was caught in. 

 

“Is he h-hurting me?” Four gasped around his emotions. The laughter stopped bubbling up from his throat and his lips pressed together in a tight line of holding it together. “No,  _little brother_ ” and Five ignored the derisive attitude dripping from Klaus’s words, “he’s not hurting me. He’s locking me away every night to try and  _expand my potential._ ” 

 

He hadn’t realized his hands were smoothing a repetitive path along Four’s arms, but his brother’s tears had stopped and he leaned into Five’s hold. “I can’t help you if I don’t know what’s going on.” 

 

The slight pull Klaus apparently felt at his touch evaporated and he leaned out of Five’s reach. His green eyes met Five’s own, a desperate hope and devastated resignation burning in them. “Is that what you want, Five? Have you been trying to help us, cracking jokes and letting us in on little secrets? Have you been trying to help me?” And they all seemed sincere – these terrified questions falling from Four’s drawn lips. 

 

“Of course!” he nearly snapped, annoyance creeping into his tone and voice a bit louder than necessary. “Encouraging each and every one of you in training, pushing myself to stay on the defensive during missions in order to minimize injury, and yes, sharing things with you I wouldn’t have a few years ago. We aren’t blood, Klaus. We were bought, housed, fed, and raised together like a herd of prize sheep. I fought the dictation and the proverbial shepherd. But for years, I thought most of you to be the sheep Father tries to mold us into, maybe bleating in protest once in a while. 

 

“Recently,” he said, glancing down at his soulmark and shifting considerably in his chair to hide the look, “I began to think otherwise. We’re family. We fight – most days, I want to strangle Allison with her own hair – but we also fight together. I saved her life last night. I risked my own.” He fought the urge to caress his soulmark and reassure himself, reassure his bond, that everything was fine. “I risked everything to save that self-obsessed, uptight brat because she’s family. Not only are you my brother, Four, but I like you a hell of a lot more than her.” 

 

Four’s watery chuckle and affectionate clap on the shoulder soothed Five’s irritation. He let out a breath, loosening the tightness in his chest, and grinned. 

 

“I’m not sure how you can help, really.” The peals of the laughter were gone, but Klaus had lost the haunted look he’d worn earlier. “Daddy dearest decided to force my training, if I wouldn’t call the spirits and raise the dead on his orders. We go to a cemetery a couple of nights a week. He pulls me from the car and marches me through the gate, until we get to a mausoleum. It’s huge, pale grey marble with columns and carvings. And it’s full of kids. He leaves me down there for hours; he makes me stay longer if I cry and beg, and then makes me stay longer if I give in and try to talk to one. When he lets me out, Dad takes me straight to my room. I never see Mom or Pogo. I never get to take a shower. Straight to being locked in my room for the whatever's left of the night.” 

 

Fury burned through Five and he wished to go back an hour, let all of his anger build up before seeing his father so that Five could give him a real piece of his damn mind. In hindsight, he hadn’t been nearly as cruel, as honest, as he’d wanted to allow himself to be in that office. He should have left it on fire, left it resembling the smoldering pile of rock and ash it’d been as Vanya wept on the ground of a wasteland in his dream.  

 

He pushed the rage away, tried to focus on the situation at hand. With a smirk, he said, “Of course I can help. I can be in and out without him even noticing. It’s about time we had a sleepover, anyway, don’t you think?” 

 

The hand on his shoulder tightened as Klaus leaned forward, a grin sneaking back onto his face. 

 

 *****  

 

Five lingered outside the music room’s door, hand inches above the handle. His ears strained for music. Seven played in the private rooms more often than not, but if she was warming up or trying something for fun rather than instruction, she may play by the study tables. When no melodies drifted from the room, he turned the handle and pushed the door open. 

 

The study tables were empty. All the chairs were pushed into place and the surface was free of study materials or sheet music. Guitars, pianos, and drums sat around the room, polished and tuned as if they were used every single day. Apart from Vanya’s violin (and her two other violins, used less frequently though in no worse shape), only the piano and one or two of the bass guitars were played on a semi-regular basis. The bass guitars had been plucked from their stands and strummed by Diego recently but not so much in the past. Diego took to the instrument far better than Five expected; Vanya spent hours teaching him to read sheet music, which strings went along to which notes, how to hold a pick correctly... 

 

He loved seeing Vanya interact with someone else about music. She was so passionate and knowledgeable; she was confident, even. Five liked the strong, sure lines of her shoulders as she demonstrated to Diego how plucking and sliding her fingers along the strings could draw rippling music them. Seven seemed to be getting better as she taught, as well. She’d progressed into more complex violin works, picked up on the bass with little effort, and surpassed both Ben and Allison exercising her piano skills. 

 

Now that Five stopped to think about it, scanning the rows of sheet music in case Vanya was crouched down to search one, she’d excelled at a number of things recently. Pogo praised her just the day before on how well Seven was doing with both the new play they were reading and the newest section of chemistry he’d started teaching. Five spent a lot of time watching from the sidelines as of late, during the times the Hargreeves children were allowed to mingle without competition. Vanya was often seen beating Klaus in a game of chess or comparing the plot lines of pleasure reads with Ben. His feet carried him to the soundproof practice rooms; his mind followed the thread, searching for what tied all of this together. He wouldn’t dream of interfering with the growth he saw in his soulmate. It was about damn time the other children and Pogo recognized how extraordinary Vanya was. 

 

His step faltered, both from his realization and also at the sight of Vanya and Allison together in the freshly fixed up sound room. 

 

Pogo couldn’t be allowed to realize how extraordinary Vanya was, because she shouldn’t be. Seven should be perfectly adequate at everything she does. She should be ordinary, passing, standard. Thanks to Number Three, Vanya should never be more than good at anything. He vowed to speak with her later on the matter, urge her to downplay any sudden new talents and tricks. But first... 

 

He rapped on the door to the sound room, strutting over the threshold before the two inside could do anything more than look towards the interruption. 

 

Five entered the tiny room with an air of confidence and a smirk to match. As he breezed past Allison to greet Vanya, various reasons Allison would have to seek her out raced through his mind. None of them were satisfactory; the fire was burning through his veins again, he fought the urge to stiffen his spine, square his shoulders, and stand tall over his sister. While he didn’t know what she wanted, Five was certain Allison wouldn’t dare upset Seven for no reason when she knew how protective Five had grown. 

 

Seven’s violin sat in its case on the table behind her; she held the bow loosely in one hand, brown eyes gazing at him inquisitively and a smile playing on her lips at his sudden appearance. His first instinct was to drop a kiss to Seven’s hairline and tug her to his side. Five instead slung an arm around her shoulders and gave Vanya an affectionate squeeze, turning to acknowledge Allison without dropping his arm. Her mouth was shaped around a silent exclamation, surprise raising her brows. He allowed his smirk to grow at her reaction; Allison had mostly likely expected Five to act with secrecy and shame regarding his closeness to Vanya. But not once had he ever felt shame for his soulmate. Allison and Luther were free to their strange dance of being drawn to one another and then fleeing at the first sight of real emotions. Five would never hide his soulmate in order to keep their father’s regard and respect. Vanya would never hide her soulmate purely to continue raking in the adoration and admiration of thousands. 

 

No, they hid out of necessity. Five imagined himself climbing the roof, taking over a newscast outside of a mission, screaming out on the sidewalk, finally telling the entire world how the girl beside him was everything and more. Megaphones, microphones, mass media. He itched to use any and every method of conveying his love to the world. 

 

Just a few more years to wait, but he’d be damned if he hid his heart away from someone who owed him too much to attempt blackmail. 

 

He watched in amusement as Allison's lips came together to form a tense smile and she said, “Nice to see you awake, Five.” She wrapped her arms around her midsection and shifted her weight to one foot. 

 

“That’s probably the longest I’ve slept consecutively since the womb,” he replied dryly. 

 

Allison’s smile eased into something more familiar; Vanya's shoulders shook under his arm at her adorable little laugh. “You seem refreshed.”  One of her hands moved from her side and fluttered in his direction for a moment before resuming its former resting position. With her brows drawing together and her tone lower considerably, Allison asked, “Are you…okay?” 

 

“I told her you were feeling fine,” Vanya offered up, shrugging one shoulder a little and keeping her eyes on Allison. “She was pretty worried about you.” 

 

Five watched as Vanya, his soulmate, narrowed her eyes just the slightest bit at Allison. His mouth itched to stretch into a full-blown grin and he cleared his throat to fight off a laugh. “It is,” he began deliberately, “very sweet of you to worry so much.” 

 

Vanya tensed and the both of them looked at Five with a hint of incredulity, Seven's expression mixed with annoyance and Three’s with optimism. 

 

“Of course I worried,” Allison said, almost scoffing, “you saved my life. You risked your life, for me. And then you just passed out for the next ten hours.” 

 

Five took a delicious moment to imagine Vanya as a large dog – the mastiff came to mind, and the thought of such an intimidating dog representing Seven made it even better – growling and snapping sharp teeth in Allison’s direction. “My powers are quite draining, but I have faith in my own abilities. Besides, Luther would be completely useless without you around.” 

 

The optimism he'd seen in her expression moments ago faded at his dismissive attitude, replaced with exasperation and maybe the smallest hint of hurt. “I’m sure if he applied himself,” Allison joked in a startling imitation of Pogo’s solemnity, “Master Luther would excel at whatever he attempts.” Vanya actually grinned at her words, which seemed to give Allison enough confidence to get to the point of her visit. 

 

Clasping her hands together and rocking on her feet for a moment, Allison took a deep breath. A sweet smile flitted across her lips as she met first Five and then Seven’s eyes. “Speaking of Luther, he suggested the four of us sneak out and go to Griddy’s tonight. He said that Dad would be attending a dinner with the mayor and branch manager of North East Banks. And we could probably use a night out, after everything.” 

 

“That sounds nice,” Seven answered before he could say anything. Her free hand had come to rest against his back, her tense fingers as telling as the irritation and confusion sweeping through their bond. He fought the urge to roll his eyes at Allison and didn’t know  _who_ the urge came from. He pressed his lips together for the briefest second, fighting the urge to grin like an idiot. “We can meet up after dinner and walk together, if you’d like.” 

 

The suggestion of walking together did make Five roll his eyes; he grunted softly when Vanya’s elbow dug into his ribs, catching her laughing eyes and stern frown from his peripheral. Allison watched the entire exchange. Her eyebrows were nearly drawn together, furrowing in her confusion, above pretty brown eyes narrowed in disbelief. She didn’t comment on or interrupt the unusual display of closeness – even though it was obvious she was drawn to the sight. Five tugged Vanya even closer, his hand falling from her shoulder to her waist. He pretended not to notice the flush crawling up Seven’s neck or the way Allison averted her gaze for a moment. 

 

Reveling in the discomfort he caused, Five supposed he could walk to the donut shop tonight. He truly preferred the minutes alone he stole with Vanya when he jumped them to their destination. It was not only smart but also kind of Seven to offer they walk. The offer would seem like an olive branch to Allison. Not that he felt she needed an offer of peace when he’d saved her life, but he would go along with it. “Sounds like a plan,” he drawled. “Now, Vanya promised to show me the sonata she’s been working on.” 

 

Allison took the dismissal for what it was and said her goodbyes, striding from the sound room only to falter and look back a few steps beyond the door. Her face was blank, hands fisted at her side. She paused for only a moment before continuing on her way. Five’s eyes followed her the entire time. He wasn’t sure why she’d turned to stare at two of them, and the storm behind her eyes told him she didn’t really know why either. 

 

“Now, Vanya, I believe you have to play me a song now, unless you want to make a liar out of me.” 

 

She picked up her violin and began to play. Five listened, eyes closed and mind at peace, wondering if he preferred the sound of her music or her laughter. 

 

*****

Seven spent nearly an hour playing for him before she stopped, pulling her chair to his own and getting as close as she could to him without sitting in his lap. Five ignored his musings on her sudden craving for physical closeness, knowing that no matter her reasons he was glad to have Vanya near. They sat together, discussing his explosion of anger in Hargreeves’ office as well as the possibility she’d need to downplay her newfound talents. She didn’t react negatively to either conversation. Vanya mentioned she was aware of her skills growing at a much more rapid pace than before, and vowed to not let so much show in case anyone grew suspicious. 

 

She and Five parted ways outside the music room; Vanya took the stairs to find Luther and express the need for a private discussion, while Five jumped to the kitchen. 

 

His first jump of the day landed him in the right spot with all of his fingers and toes. The apprehension he’d felt at attempting even the smallest jump after exhausting himself yesterday was gone, but the side effects of overtaxing his powers still lingered. Just one jump had his chest feeling constricted and a headache building behind his eyes. Maybe Vanya insisted they walk to the donut shop tonight out of more than just goodwill towards his siblings. Five’s stomach growled loudly at the reminder of donuts and he moved to gather a snack large enough to hold him over until dinner. 

 

The kitchen was empty, only the low hum of the refrigerator and thud of distant feet on the floor above him present in the room. His stomach was growling again, just at the slightest smell of food ever-present in the kitchen. Five rummaged through the fridge, thinking on the necessity of napping before dinner if he planned on sneaking out. Surely, the discussion with Luther wouldn’t last over an hour, which would leave him two before dinner to curl up somewhere quiet. Juggling a pitcher of freshly made apple juice, some cheese cubes, and a container of blueberries, Five thought on convincing Vanya to hide out with him for a nap. He knew it was unlikely, even as he arranged his armload of snacks on the counter and opened the pantry to find first the peanut butter and then the bag of pretzel sticks Klaus tried to hide every time the groceries were delivered. It would be too noticeable for Five, Six,  _and_ Seven to all be missing when they had no set schedule for the day, he knew. Five poured three cups of juice for the three siblings about to have a nasty discussion, then crowded the drinks and snacks on the tray Mom had brought him a late breakfast on. 

 

He stared down at the food, comparing the sight before him to the one presented to him in bed earlier today. Popping a strawberry into his mouth and chewing thoughtfully, Five resigned himself to attempting an early night after their Griddy’s visit. There was simply too much to do today for a nap. 

 

Satisfied with his food expedition, Five jumped to Luther’s room and hoped his company awaited him already. 

 

And they did, both Luther and Vanya sitting in companionable silence. Luther jumped ( _Ironically_ , Five thought with an internal smirk) at his arrival but immediately hopped to his feet to help his brother administer the snacks. Five allowed him to take the cups from the tray before he reached around Vanya to sit it on the desk before her. She smiled up at him from the cage of his arms on either side of her. He grinned down at Seven, taking note of her affectionate expression and the cute way she crossed her legs at the ankle and tucked the under the desk chair. He dropped the tray on the desk and a kiss on the crown of her head before seating himself on Luther’s bed while the drinks were passed around. 

 

To his credit, Luther took the obvious affection between the two much better than his own soulmate had. There was no gawking or shock from Five’s twin, only a bit of wistfulness that darted from his face almost the second Five turned to him. 

 

“I have some upsetting news to share.” 

 

“Number Seven warned me about that. She didn’t say what was going on though.” 

 

Vanya sipped her juice in silence, simply waiting for an explanation. Luther likely thought she knew what Five was there to share with them – hence the impatience in his tone – but Five had wanted to make certain they would be alone, and he didn’t want to relay the information more than once if possible. With two pairs of inquisitive eyes on him, Five dipped a pretzel directly into the jar of peanut butter and crunched down on it loudly. 

 

His mouth was dry when he made to speak, though he couldn’t say if it was from the food he’d swallowed or the words he needed to force out. After a drink from his cup, he cleared his throat and tried again. 

 

“Klaus didn’t join us on the mission this morning because he was locked in a mausoleum all night. Apparently, that’s how Dad’s taken to training him nowadays.” 

 

Five, upon seeing how disgusted and slightly ill Luther looked at this news, was glad he hadn’t wasted time with small talk. It would be bad enough talking about this new, worrying form of abuse Hargreeves was putting one of them through; talking about it on mostly empty stomachs would be easier. Seven’s expression told him nothing, but the anger and surprise that reared up at his words belonged to Vanya as surely as he did. 

 

“He said it happens a few times a week. It seems like they’d just gotten lucky before, never disappearing when we had a sudden mission. Klaus said he’s usually locked in there for the majority of the night and Dad takes him straight to his room when they return.” 

 

Luther’s color had gone positively green the more he heard. 

 

“How long has this been going on?” Seven asked, voice steady but hands shaking as she reached for the strawberries and avoided looking at either of the boys. 

 

“I don’t know. Klaus said that he’s down there for hours at a time on average, longer if he refuses to talk to the spirits and longer still if he gives in. I imagine Hargreeves thinks Four will eventually give in, start communicating with the dead around him right away out of fear of being locked up with them forever.” Five ran a hand through his hair and sat his juice on the desk so that he could pace the length of Luther’s room unhindered. “But Klaus doesn’t face things head on. He’d rather drown out the voices with whatever drugs he can get his hands on, running from what Hargreeves wants him to tackle.” 

 

His quick, even steps faltered and he turned his gaze to Luther. Their Number One, who had no idea their father was forcing one of them to spend his nights surrounded by the spirits of dead children. “Luther, Klaus was an absolute mess. He didn’t believe I wanted to help him at first; he doesn’t look like he’s been eating or sleeping.” 

 

Luther seemed to shrink in on himself at the confession. He didn’t look like he could toss cars around and bench-press bovines in that moment. He looked more human, more afraid, than Five had ever seen him. 

 

 _Granted_ , a tiny voice whispered to him,  _who knows how terrified Luther looked at the possibility of losing his soulmate and his twin to a thug_ _hours_ _earlier?_  Five hadn’t been able to see his face, after all. 

 

In a stark contrast to One, Seven spoke up with controlled anger tightening her tone. “So how do we help him?” 

 

“How are the two of you not freaking out?” Luther blurted. As one, Five and Seven turned to look at him. Luther’s eyes darted from his face to hers, and back again. “We had no idea Dad was this...” 

 

“Cruel?” Five scoffed. 

 

“ _Awful_?” Seven spat. 

 

“Either! Klaus is his son, just as much as you or me, Five!” 

 

“The hell we are!” Five snapped. “We’re his tools, to hone and shape into what he wants. We don’t risk our lives with guns and explosives because he thinks of us as children, Luther. We’re put on the front lines of petty crime and organized gang activity because we’re weapons he wants to show off. He owns us; we have powers; he is powerful. That’s how it works.” 

 

His brother seemed to think on protesting the assessment of their father’s outlook on his children, but thought better of it. Luther slumped back down and sighed. 

 

“Honestly, I was shocked he would take it this far,” Five offered up, hoping Luther felt less chastised at the confession, “but I believe Four.” 

 

“Of course, Klaus is telling the truth,” Vanya interjected. “Think about it. How many times has Father pushed you to jump to the point of nosebleeds, migraines, and even passing out?” Seven stood suddenly, the chair skittering out behind her and her voice rising incrementally as she continued. “How many times has he exhausted you with bigger, heavier objects, Luther? He taught Allison to manipulate people, Ben to devour entire groups of men at a time! He throws knives at Diego! He sends out his precious Umbrella Academy to fight for him, earn medals and accolades and thanks in his name. Do you really think there isn’t anything he wouldn’t do to control us?” 

 

And Five could hear the unspoken words, the broken and painful memories she couldn’t fully recall, accusing their father of being terrible enough to take away a power if it so suited him. He didn’t need to pull up his sleeve and look down to know his mark was glowing in the aftermath of Vanya’s tirade. Five crossed the few feet between them and took Vanya’s hands in his own, crushed her to his chest and took deep, even breaths for her to mimic. He vaguely registered Luther speaking behind them, but Vanya took precedence. 

 

Luther knew a lot, at this point, about their bond and the secrets Five was working to uncover from Pogo’s journal. But he couldn’t be allowed to know about Vanya’s powers; Five couldn’t let them swell into anything more than a light emitting from their soulmarks when someone else was around. The abandoned office building on the outskirts of town was the only place he felt comfortable letting Seven loose, with hardly anything but rats and pigeons around for blocks. They would go there after this, most likely, and let her release what was pent up. But he didn’t feel comfortable handing over this last secret – not when he knew without a doubt Reginald would do whatever it took to put a stop to their attempts at training Vanya. 

 

He calmed Seven as quickly as he could, her chest no longer heaving in anger and her hands twisting in his shirt rather than fisted at her sides. Luther remained unperturbed by them. He still looked sick at the thought of what Klaus was going through, when Five released Vanya and turned back to his brother. 

 

“I’m going to join Klaus when I can. If we keep watch, listen for when Hargreeves pulls Four from his room, I should be able to jump to the mausoleum and keep Klaus company. If possible, I’d like to help him talk to the spirits. Maybe if he’s not forced, doesn’t think it's his only option, he’ll open up to training his abilities.” 

 

“If nothing else,” Luther said, “I’m sure he’ll appreciate having someone there with him.” 

 

Seven nodded jerkily, eyes on the floor and one hand intertwined with one of Five's. “It makes a difference, when you aren’t alone anymore.” 


	14. Where is the love, the kind we dream of?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Four of the Hargreeves kids deal with their powers, themselves, and their soulmates.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've had a portion of the first scene written since the first week I started working on this story. It wasn't where I originally planned to put it, but it just fit so well I didn't even mind messing up my own plans. Also, the first scene decided to go in its own direction. I'm sure y'all won't mind though.
> 
> Chapter title from Chaos Chaos.

The only things Five could hear over the white noise of sleeping city life were the calls of a pair of owls and, very distantly, the rush of a river. The warehouse he’d picked was situated in a rundown block of equally dilapidated buildings on the outside of town – a plaza of old offices, one abandoned factory, and half a dozen condemned houses. Five always jumped them directly inside. It was the best way to avoid drawing attention to themselves or running into others looking for a mostly empty part of town. The two-story building made of crumbling brick and rusted steel beams had been overrun by nature some time ago, as seen by the cracked concrete floors sporting a few struggling weeds even in the winter season and the empty bird nests along a few of the support beams. While it wasn’t much to look at, the warehouse and lack of human life nearby made it perfect for training Vanya’s powers. Scaring off a few raccoons seemed a decent trade off to Five. 

 

“What do you hear, Vanya?” 

 

She sat in the middle of the room, a pale yellow table cloth they’d pilfered from Mom’s linen closest underneath her, with her eyes closed. Vanya had pulled her hair up and out of her face for the duration of her training and Five found it difficult to keep his eyes off of the curve of her neck, as well as the gently glowing soulmark exposed to the world. Legs crossed, skirt fanned out against her lap, a messy bun of beautiful, dark hair perched atop her head. 

 

Five’s heart ached just looking at her. He’d never found anyone else so captivating, so alluring. 

 

“Two owls. Your breathing. A few crickets. The river to the east. Traffic to the north and the east. Tree branches against a window.” 

 

“What are you going to focus on?” 

 

Her face scrunched up for a moment as she tried to decide. She opened her eyes and turned them to Five. “The river,” she settled on, then leaned forward to grab the violin case sitting in front of her. 

 

Five hopped off of the metal stool he’d perched himself on while she was familiarizing herself with the sounds around them. He brushed the dust from his pants and made his way to the stack of old wooden crates at the back of the warehouse. Behind him, he could hear Vanya readying her violin. He took a few minutes to drag the crates around. The crates were a few cubic feet in shape, so he stacked a few two or three high. He placed them in a rough circle around Seven. Their placements ranged from twenty to fifty feet away from her, far enough away from each other that she’d be able to see them all from her center point. 

 

“How about a dozen, today, Vanya?” he called from where he’d sat the last crate down. 

 

She paused her warm up, which sounded suspiciously like Fleetwood Mac, to study the range of targets he’d orchestrated. Nodding, Vanya answered, “That’s perfect.” 

 

Five wove around the crates until he reached her side. Vanya’s bottom lip showed signs of being bitten and he could feel her nervousness seeping through their bond. He took the hand not holding her violin, kissing her fisted knuckles without allowing himself to be smacked with the bow. Her fingers tightened their grip under his attention. Five released her hand, looking up at the pretty flush on her cheeks and smirking. Wordlessly, he bent down to close the violin case and move it out of blasting range. 

 

“Make sure you’re far enough away that you won’t be hit by anything. Five,” she ordered. 

 

“I will. And you’ll do wonderfully, Vanya. There’s no need to worry. We’re perfectly alone out here and I have complete faith in your abilities.” 

 

She took a deep breath and nodded. He wanted to shake his head at her disbelief. The last few times they’d come out here to test her powers, Vanya hit every target. The pile of wood swept into one corner could attest to that. Even the few times she’d missed and had to take aim a second time, Five hadn’t been harmed. The concrete floors looked a little worse for wear that when they arrived, sure, but not by much. 

 

He gave her a knowing grin and jumped to the furthest corner of the room, sitting the violin case down beside him. 

 

Vanya started to play, her eyes falling shut again seconds after the bow touched the strings. Her body swayed minutely with the music. A breeze picked up inside the building and Five felt a now-familiar awe growing in his chest. The wind was strongest around Vanya, pulling at her uniform and sending any hair not fully caught in her bun into a frenzied dance. It grew stronger still as she coaxed faster, stronger sounds from the strings of her violin. He couldn’t see her soulmark from his vantage point; his own, though, glowed with a brighter light the more she played. 

 

Her song filled the empty warehouse, cancelling out anything else Five could have possibly heard. Her body responded to the music as though they were one. There was a tightness to her posture, shoulders and arms fraught with tension until she tore her bow from the strings and struck. A jolt of power – unseen to him, but not her, they’d learned – exploded from the bow. It was aimed at the crate dead in front of her, which exploded into a mess of splinters and wood chips only a second after Vanya swung the bow in its direction. 

 

He suppressed a victorious cheer and waited for the song to end. The strings were once again singing for Seven, and did so until she stood surrounded by her own version of a dozen bull’s eyes. Each strike of the bow sent an invisible shock wave out, over and over again, without missing a single crate this time around. Vanya did not hunch over her violin as she played this time. She held it was if it were an extension of herself, the instrument and the bow no less familiar than the hands holding them. He watched in amazement. How did such destruction come from something so beautiful? 

 

When the music and the wind died down, he left the violin case where it was and appeared before her. Five loved Vanya with every breath he took – that was true. But it had been _years_ since he revered her like this. Too long he had wasted, forgetting just what exactly it meant that Vanya was his soulmate. The first time he saw her mark, and the following few weeks of quiet astonishment, was the last time he had properly appreciated this everyday connection. 

 

He took in every little detail about her. The disbelieving grin on her face as she assessed the damage. Her hair, loose pieces escaped from their place with the wind whipping around her. Her huge, dark eyes widened in astonishment. And the ring of white around her iris, glowing just as strongly as his soulmark. 

 

There were no coherent thoughts in his mind as he reached around, curling his hand around the base of her neck and pressing his palm flat against her own illuminated mark, only a burning heat in every vein of his body. The light in her eyes drew him like a moth to flame and he was already on fire. A torrent of emotions flowed through him. Some of them (fierce pride, all-encompassing affection, churning wonderment) he identified as his own; others (elated shock, breath-stopping uncertainty) must have belonged to Vanya. When he bent down and closed the few inches between them, everything he felt melted away to leave a lone emotion ricocheting between them. 

 

Only love remained, and Five felt the simultaneous urge to cheer and weep. Vanya remained the sole inspiration of this remarkable emotion in his life. And he’d never felt it as strongly as he did now, in a run-down warehouse kissing her as though his life depended on it. Nothing had ever made his knees tremble like the sound of both her bow and her violin clattering to the floor in Seven’s rush to have her hands on him. Her deft fingers tangled in his hair and the back of his shirt while she tried to drag him closer still. His heart was bound to beat out his chest the moment he felt the insistent press of her soft lips and he couldn’t imagine a better way to die. Vanya moved her hand from his back and blindly grabbed his arm, her fingers snaking up his sleeve and wrapping around his wrist until she, too, covered his mark with her palm. The arm he’d wrapped around her waist to drag her against his chest tightened and he dug his fingers into her hip in fierce approval. 

 

A sharp gasp parted her lips beneath his and a heady, feral feeling grew in his chest at the thought of Vanya opening up to him. 

 

Those fierce thoughts startled him into propriety and Five forced himself to exercise even a shred of self-control. He couldn’t bring himself to pull away from Vanya suddenly and instead gentled his actions. The hand on her waist stopped attempting to imprint his fingerprints into her skin, the one around her neck eased up until it was a light press and not an insistent push. Five kissed her softer, more adoration and less hunger in his attentions. Vanya followed his lead and melted against him. A far-off part of him  was thankful for the death grip on his hair being loosened considerably. 

 

She was the first to break their connection; he was left flushed and restless before her. 

 

The white had gone from around her eyes, leaving Seven’s usual dark brown ringed around blown pupils. One of her lips showed signs of Seven’s anxieties earlier, but now both of them were swollen with the fervor of their affections. He wondered absently if he looked just as disheveled. 

 

Vanya glanced at the instrument at their feet, then back at Five with a fond grin. “I’ve been wondering when you were going to do that. Did you have to kiss me for the first time when I was holding my violin?” 

 

Five laughed at her question, surprise and affection warring inside him as he extracted himself from Vanya completely to reach down and pick up the offended instrument and bow. Only a scuff on the base of the violin showed how easily she’d tossed them aside to grab Five. “Good thing you insisted on bringing your practice violin for training, then.” He held them out to her as a superfluous olive branch. 

 

Vanya wrapped her hands around his forearms to steady herself, stretching and standing on her toes to press a sweet, swift kiss to his lips before taking her things. “Fetch my violin case so we can get this mess cleaned up. We shouldn’t be late for dinner if we’re quick.” 

 

 *****  

 

Dinner passed nearly the same as it always did, apart from the lingering euphoria from their afternoon in the warehouse. He continuously reminded himself that grinning like an idiot was no decent way to keep attention off of himself. So long as he didn’t let his eyes slide towards Seven, it worked. 

 

He also didn’t let his gaze linger on Luther, who seemed to be un-subtly trying to communicate something with nothing but his expressions. 

 

He thanked Mom for the lovely meal on the way to “bed” for the night, stopped by Pogo’s office long enough to affirm they would be going over his equations for slowing time tomorrow. While he was far from applying the math to his practice, he’d spent hours laboring over it in the last weeks. Pogo waved him off with an assurance. He seemed to be finishing up for the night, watering a few of the plants in his windowsill. 

 

After his goodnights, he jumped to his room and made quick work of switching his uniform for street clothes. He tidied his room while he waited what seemed like an appropriate amount of time for Vanya to have changed. 

 

He appeared in her room with a hand covering his eyes, just in case. If his reaction to a kiss was anything to go by, Five was damn sure he didn’t need anything to add more fuel to the fire. Vanya pried his fingers from over his eyes with careful hands and soft giggles. She wore a snug ruby sweater and the same cream-colored scarf as the last time they’d snuck out. He ran one hand through her hair while she held the other; Five accepted the kiss she pressed to his cheek with a grin and a flush to match the one he’d given her earlier. 

 

Vanya danced away from his hands and sat in her desk chair, removing the scarf from her neck and tossing Five a hairbrush so quickly he fumbled to catch it. She turned in her chair and sent Five a sweet smile. “Allison will be at least another twenty minutes. I’ll walk you through a waterfall braid.” 

 

“Yes ma’am,” Five drawled as he strode the few steps to the desk. 

 

It was a more difficult braid than he was used to, but Vanya was patient enough to allow him three attempts until he got it right. She smacked his hand once, when he’d tugged on a bit of hair too hard. They spent the rest of the time fondly sniping at one another until he deemed the braid the best he could do. Five jumped them to the fifth-floor bathroom and watched Vanya crane her neck this way and that to get a good look at her braid. He chuckled in fond amusement and accepted her approval of his work before jumping them to the alleyway they were meeting Allison and Luther in. 

 

They were already waiting, and Five and Seven’s arrival cut off their half-whispered conversation. Luther perked up seeing they’d arrived. Allison sent them a sweet smile that didn’t reach her eyes. 

 

“Ready for dessert?” Luther joked. 

 

Five buried his short temper deep beneath the small amount of affection he was developing for his twin and the happiness leftover from today. He could get through an hour or two with Allison and Luther, no problem. He took down organized criminals weekly. One... double date wouldn’t be that bad. 

 

*****

 

Luther shook the table with not only his laughter but also his fist pounding on the table accompanying said laughter. Allison wore a real smile for maybe the third time all night, and Vanya was muffling her own amusement against his shoulder. A few of the other patrons sent them indulgent smiles. 

 

Five enjoyed Griddy’s, much more than the sticky bowling alley or the crowded mall Klaus constantly chose for his nights out. He liked the opportunity to indulge in something sweet; he liked the grouchy old men that were the only ones left by the time the Hargreeves kids prepared to sneak back home; he especially liked the coffee he finally had a chance to try. Luther had given him a scandalized look when he ordered it, to which Five raised his eyebrows and smirked, asking if Luther was afraid to break more than one rule at a time. 

 

In hindsight, he probably shouldn’t have said anything. The rest of the kids jumped at the chance to drink something caffeinated. They changed their orders with the sweet blonde waitress, forgoing their usual juice or milk for sodas. Luther insisted they all get something they hadn’t tried before, like Five with his coffee, which the girls agreed with easily. Vanya sipped her cream soda slowly, savoring the sweet flavor she’d forced Five to try (he preferred the coffee, taken with only two packets of sugar) while Luther and Allison swapped their root beer and orange sodas after a tentative first drink that left both of them with scrunched faces. The mixed dozen of donuts between them dwindled down quickly at first, leaving only a raspberry filled and two glazed left. They’d long since abandoned the pastries for exchanging stories and barbs. 

 

“Okay, but can we please address Diego’s sudden need to dress like a leather daddy?” Allison huffed with a glint her warm brown eyes and a smirk that betrayed her amusement. 

 

Over Five and Vanya’s laughter, Luther tried to ask, “A what?” 

 

Vanya laughed harder, covering her mouth and sending conspiratorial glances towards Five. Collectively ignoring Luther’s question, they shared a laugh at his confusion. 

 

“I don’t get it!” 

 

“Ask Klaus to explain it to you when we get home,” Five offered up. 

 

“Actually,” Seven began when her giggles subsided, “that’s my fault. I dared Diego to let Klaus dress him up. Klaus gave him a pair of leather pants.” 

 

“And he never looked back,” Five concluded. He approved of her purposely leaving out the fact that Diego’s outfit came from Allison's closet. Their sister was more than protective of her clothes, especially when it came to Klaus rifling through them, and it likely would have soured her mood. The omitted information saved them from a half hour of furious complaints about Four.

 

Allison wrinkled her face nose confusion and asked, “You dared him?” 

 

Vanya launched into the story about the truth or dare game with the tone of a memory well loved, during which Allison seemed to grow progressively more annoyed. Luther resumed slapping the table when she told them about Klaus daring Ben to stick baby carrots in his nose for the remainder of the game. The waitress approaching their table calmed the kids somewhat, pausing both the raucous laughter and the story Seven was spinning. 

 

“No rush, kids, but I’m leaving for the night,” she said, and then gestured towards another woman behind the counter. “If you need anything, Suzanne back there will be taking care of you.” 

 

They all thanked her and wished her a good night, Seven leaning around Five to press a generous tip into the woman’s hands. She sent Vanya a grateful smile, patted her hand, and thanked them for being such lovely patrons whenever they came in.

 

“Get home safe,” Luther said, then leaned forward to read her nametag, “Agnes.” She assured that she would, and left the shop with a man so large even Luther might have trouble taking him on. Five imagined if anyone with dark intentions awaited the sweet waitress on her walk home, they’d think twice seeing her companion. Farewells followed them out of the donut shop; Five wondered if she'd work here long, knew all the regulars by name or order.

 

Once the Hargreeves were alone again, Allison turned to Five and asked, “When did you guys play truth or dare?” 

 

“Klaus suggested it the day you and Luther were out with our father for that magazine interview. That’s why Luther came home to all of his model planes and ships rearranged.” 

 

“Do all of you frequently have a good time without us?” she huffed. 

 

Five felt Vanya stiffen at his side and scowled at his sister across the table. “Does it matter, when we all went off to have a good time without Ben, Diego, and Klaus?” 

 

“One time versus how many?” she spat, tightening her hands around the root beer mug she held before her. 

 

“Al, it’s fine. We go off without the rest of the team all the time.” 

 

She sent Luther a scathing look and they communicated something silently that left Luther annoyed but reticent. Five watched as Allison leaned forward, anger clear in the tense lines of her body. “But Vanya isn’t a part of the team, is she?” 

 

Blind rage rushed through Five and a distant part of him hoped Vanya couldn’t feel it even half as strongly as he did. He was very much aware that Vanya wasn’t considered a part of the team, and had been working to change that for a few years now. All of their brothers had no problem accepting Seven into the fold, not even Allison’s own soulmate – who tried to open his mouth before Five could, and failed. 

 

“She might not be a member of the Umbrella Academy, but Seven’s a far better team player than you.” 

 

“Oh, that’s rich, Five. You calling someone else a poor team player? Besides Seven, you can’t stand anyone in the Academy.” 

 

“Yes, Allison,” he drawled sarcastically, rolling his eyes, “I hate you so damn much I let you get shot in the head yesterday and your ghost is now the one bitching me out for not liking you enough.” 

 

Several things happened at once, hardly any of which the Hargreeves were prepared for. The empty coffee cup an old man left on the table behind them blew up, sending a spray of sticky glass shards over Allison and Luther’s backs. More glass appeared across the table between the four of them. Allison’s mug was no longer between her hands, which were covered in a few cuts and a copious amount of blood, and instead had shattered between her hands and over the tabletop. Whatever Luther started to say as all of this happened faded out in the dead silent shock of the double-cup explosion. 

 

It took a second for Luther to gather his composure, his mouth moving through the beginning of several words before settling on something. “Five, take Three and Seven outside. I’ll go apologize to the staff and settle the bill.” 

 

They all followed One’s orders as though it were a mission and not an illicit outing for donuts. Five herded the two girls outside, ignoring looks for the other customers, and immediately set to getting the glass he could out of Allison’s hands. She refused to meet his eyes, hands shaking under his ministrations, and kept glancing at the counter where Luther stood through the windows. Five didn’t even notice Seven re-enter the restaurant until she’d returned with a large stack of napkins and a Styrofoam cup of water. He thanked her with a tender look and an understanding passed between them that their siblings were idiots. 

 

Allison hissed when he poured the water over her bleeding hands. Thankfully, she didn’t try to jerk them away and instead allowed Five to clean them as best as he could with the make-shift materials he had. The cuts on her hands seemed shallow, likely only bleeding so much because her hands were tensed around the mug. He didn’t think she’d need stitches, but he also wasn’t sure he removed the smallest pieces of glass embedded in her skin. 

 

“You’ll need to properly wash your hands when we get home. I don’t know if I got all of the glass, but the bleeding has slowed.” 

 

Luther exited the shop then, all but running right up to Allison and asking if she was okay. 

 

“I’m fine,” she assured with a sharp tone, grabbing half the stack of napkins from Vanya and turning on her heel. “Let’s just go.” 

 

She was halfway down the block by the time the other Hargreeves caught up to her. Her face was carefully constructed to seem as though none of this was bothering her – the sheen of unshed tears in her eyes betrayed that. Luther, who had been calling for her since she stalked off, tried to grab her arm and stop her. Allison harshly yanked her arm out of his grip – which must not have been very tight – and spun around to pin him down with a harsh glare. 

 

“What is your problem, Al?” he asked, taking a step back and shrinking in on himself a bit. 

 

“My problem is that you won’t leave me alone! You dragged me out to Griddy’s tonight, you constantly want my attention, and I just want some space, Luther!” 

 

Five sent Vanya a questioning look to which she shook her head. He didn’t imagine she would be okay with ditching them and jumping back home, but he also figured she didn’t blame him for the offer. 

 

Looking stricken, Luther tried to plead with Allison. “We can talk about all of this when we get home. I’m worried about your hands.” 

 

She threw the aforementioned hands in the air, napkins with scattered bloodstains floating to the ground with her action. “You wouldn’t have to be worried about my hands if you left me alone. I can worry about my own hands.” 

 

“You know why I’m worried about your hands,” he said, speaking low and taking a step towards her. 

 

“Yes, Luther, and who’s fault is that?” 

 

“How is it Luther’s fault you got pissed off and broke a glass mug between your hands, Allison?” Five sneered. 

 

“How did you blow up a coffee cup, Five?” she shot back, copying his tone and turning her face and anger towards him. 

 

“I never said I blew up a coffee cup.” 

 

“I never said I blew up a mug!” 

 

“It was in your hands, Allison, try again.” They were both shouting now, on an empty sidewalk in the middle of town. Five felt his fury building again and tried to stomp it down. He reasoned with himself that Allison was simply throwing a fit and he didn’t have to do the same. 

 

“Five, I swear to-” 

 

“ _I heard a rumor you both shut up!_ ” 

 

Silence replaced the fierce argument raging seconds before and three pairs of eyes, widened by shock, all turned to Luther. 

 

“How the hell did you do that?” Vanya nearly whispered, awe evident in her tone. 

 

Luther ignored the question, shooting both Five and Allison angry looks. When he spoke, it was with the _I’m Number One so listen up_ tone Reginald encouraged him to develop so long ago. “I am so tired of this. We are a team, and yes, Allison, that includes Number Seven whether you like it or not. And we are soulmates, Al, whether you like that or not.” He ignored her jaw dropping in both shock and anger to turn to his brother. “And Five is my brother, my real brother. We’re twins. Dad got us both from the same woman in Germany. Seven is his soulmate. Her mark is on the back of her neck.” 

 

“Luther!” Vanya snapped, and Five would have said a hell of a lot more than that if his vocal chords weren’t under whatever power Luther apparently had. 

 

“I’m sorry, Vanya,” and he seemed to mean that, too, in the word-vomit's worth of honesty he seemed to be spewing tonight, “but we’re a family. We need to start acting like one.” He took a deep breath and sent a sad glance at Allison’s injured hands. “About a year ago, Allison started getting strong. Like, super-strong, like me. We couldn’t figure out why. Then, I had a thought. I tried it out. I rumored the waiter at a pub to bring me something different than what I’d ordered, and it worked. We still don’t know why, but we can channel each other’s powers. It isn’t perfect. Al can’t lift cars or anything crazy. She has much lower limits than I do. And I can’t rumor people to do anything crazy, like hurting themselves or committing serious crimes. I wanted to ask you about it, Five, but Allison refused.” 

 

Allison was furiously mouthing things at Luther that none of them could hear or bothered to try to understand. Luther sighed heavily and sent a pleading look to Seven. Vanya seemed to understand something that Five didn’t; she put a tentative hand on Luther’s arm and nodded at him. 

 

“This needs to change. We need to start acting like a team. We need to start acting like a family. I’m tired of juggling all these different secrets. Maybe if we put our heads together, we’d find a real answer.” 

 

When the silence stretched between them for a few long moments after the conclusion to Luther’s speech, Vanya cleared her throat. “Maybe you should give them their voices back, Luther.” 

 

He flushed and nodded quickly. “Sorry. I’m not used to this yet. I heard a rumor you could both talk again.” 

 

Five was surprised when Allison didn’t open her mouth and immediately start chewing her soulmate out for essentially using her powers against her. She seemed sulky, lips pursed and eyes hard. Luther kept sending her worried glances while he waited for someone to say something. They were all surprised when Vanya spoke up first, taking a bit of leadership from both One and Five as she did. 

 

“We need to get home. If we aren’t home before Dad, it’ll be trouble for all of us regardless of soulmarks or injuries. And Mom really should take a look at Allison’s hands.” 

 

They all nodded their agreements. Five took one of Vanya’s hands in his own, the rigidity of her fingers and coldness of her skin giving him all the resolve he needed. He held another hand out towards Luther and Allison. Vanya gripped his hand harder, surprise and affection flooding their bond with her action. Luther understood immediately and took hold. All three of them looked to Allison, who still hadn’t spoken. She looked as surprised as Vanya felt. Slowly, Three loosened her arms from where they’d been wrapped around her midsection. She completed the circle by taking first Luther and then Vanya’s hands. Luther tucked Allison's injured hand into the crook of his elbow, movements gentle and careless of the blood staining his coat. Allison's brown eyes met Five’s green, some sort of shift behind them telling him that she finally understood that, yes, they were all on the same team, even the stand-offish and arrogant Number Five. 

 

*****

 

Five did not usually jump so many people at once. One was hardly noticeable, so long as they weren’t three times his size. Two was usually comfortable as long as he hadn’t overworked himself that day. Three took more out of him. It wasn’t difficult if the jump destination was relatively close, not like holding time still, but jumping three people a few blocks away still made him unusually tired and hungry. With the exhaustion from yesterday still lingering in his bones, Five jumped all four of them directly into his bedroom to minimize any accidents that could occur. 

 

He stumbled a bit on arrival. Vanya dropped both of the hands she held to steady him, causing a rush of fondness to flow through him at her worry. He grinned and tugged on her braid a little. 

 

“I’m fine, Seven, just tired.” 

 

“We’ll take our leave, Five, thanks for the lift.” It was strange to see Luther almost meek without their father around to make him so, but Five imagined the day’s stress was wearing on him at this point. 

 

Five sent a side-long glance at Allison before answering. “I had a pretty nice time, Luther. Thank you for inviting us out. Maybe next time we won’t include property damaged with dessert.” 

 

Chuckling, and more like himself, Luther said, “With our team? Unlikely.” He herded Allison out of the bedroom, everyone ignoring the way she seemed to want to say something while also seeming fully unable to spit it out. Five heard two doors click closed softly after his own had been shut. 

 

He sat down heavily on the bed and bent to start removing his shoes. Vanya toed her boots off, draped the scarf she wore over his desk chair, and took a seat beside him. When his shoes were off and kicked in the general direction of where Vanya’s lay, Five turned towards Vanya and slipped a hand behind her to unravel her hair from the braid he’d worked so hard on. He only managed to get the hair tie from the end of it and weave his fingers through the middle of the braid before Seven was interrupting him with a soft kiss he should have seen coming. 

 

One hand stayed tangled in her braid, the other cupping her cheek to keep her as close as he could for as long as she allowed. 

 

It was long and sweet, reminding him of the way he’d kissed her earlier that day after realizing his emotions were dictating his actions too much. Vanya kept both of her hands on the bed the entire time and still managed to seem as forlorn and pleased as he was when she pulled away. “Let’s get some sleep, Five. You shouldn’t be overworking yourself for a few more days, at least.” 

 

He finished taking her hair down, watched as she slipped out the door and down the hall to change into her pajamas before she returned to him. It took no time to strip down to his undershirt and boxers. Five slid under the sheets and scooted to one side, heart heavy with emotions most people would never believe he could feel for someone else. When Vanya came back, he was already half-asleep. Her soft laugh, the hand she put on his cheek, her long hair falling over her shoulders to cover his face as she bent over him – all of it only endeared Seven to him more. She settled in beside him for the night, and when he awoke the next morning to only the faintest trace of her scent and one side of the bed cold, Five hardly remembered marveling that he could fall further in love while falling asleep. 


	15. It's time we danced with the truth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Hargreeves children attempt to keep up with their homework among soulmate anxieties and woes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm finally putting Luther and Klaus on pause with their various states of crisis to bring a couple other family members further into the fold. I've been meaning to add these people in, as well as the Harry Potter talk (can you tell I've been thinking of an HP/Fiveya story?). Ellipses are breaks in the paragraphs of Pogo's journal, only detailing the parts Five deems relevant. This chapter is somehow both relevant and filler, so enjoy y'all.
> 
> Added the "Childhood Trauma" tag due to the awful things Reginald makes these children go through for their training. If anything more explicit pops up, I'll likely add "Child Abuse."
> 
> Chapter title from Lorde.

“Number Seven, report to my office after breakfast.” 

 

All six of the other Hargreeves slid their eyes to Seven, seated at the end of the table. She dipped her head in acknowledgement of their father – standing stock still behind his chair – without saying a word or glancing at the curious onlookers. Vanya resumed buttering her toast as if there hadn’t been an interruption; Reginald took his leave. Ben and Diego immediately set to whispering worriedly with one another. Impervious to the interest, Seven kept to herself and finished her breakfast. The scrape of her chair legs brought all eyes to her once again. 

 

She didn’t say a word as she stood and took her dishes to the sink. Only the fond brush of her fingers over Five’s shoulder, hidden behind returning to her chair to fetch her forgotten sweater, showed any emotion. The only worry he felt was his own. Their soulbond expressed the lack of concern she carried over Reginald’s summons. He let himself relax with the sound of her retreating footsteps. 

 

Casually, he leaned forward to smack Klaus away from the strawberry jam and take it himself. His brother retaliated with a lazy middle finger and took the honey instead. Between the layers of whipped cream and blueberry preserves stacked on his sandwich, Five wasn’t sure where Four would find the room for another sweetener. 

 

The remaining six Hargreeves children made quick work of their breakfast at Mom’s urging. Only Allison seemed eager to go to their studies, likely due to being the only one of the six to excel in their sociology lessons. Five and Luther preferred the science courses; Five held the best scores in math, however. The highest grades on essays and anything literature related went to either Ben or Klaus. Psychology went to Allison – though Five occasionally gave her a run for her money – and physiology to Luther. 

 

An hour later, after groaning over a six-page paper assignment, the children were handed back their quizzes. Allison did not crow over her perfect grade, but her smug smile said enough. She swept her eyes over the room to see everyone else’s reaction. Watching her watch their siblings, he noticed she took only a small sliver of selfish pleasure from half the room’s lesser marks expressed on their despondent faces. She hardly bothered to give Klaus’s shrug any attention – missing the smile that twitched the corners of his mouth up as he glanced at the encircled 89 on his paper before flipping it over. When she looked his way, Five held her gaze and gave Allison a smile with only the smallest bit of sarcasm to the curl of his lips. Her own prideful grin dimmed to something more private and sincere. At the question of her raised brows, Five flipped his paper over for her to see. The competitive part of him reared its head at the red 95 on the corner of his quiz. When Allison didn’t gloat further, he let it slide. They left class with a shared smile, Five making for the music room downstairs as Allison tugged on Luther’s sleeve. 

 

Vanya sat at a study table, flipping through  _Much Ado About Nothing_  and swinging her socked feet above the hard wood floors. Five seated himself next to her and plucked the book from her hands with an impish grin. He cleared his throat and moved the paperback away from her reaching hands, trying not to laugh the entire time. 

 

“ _I do much wonder that one man, seeing how much another man is a fool when he dedicates his behaviors to love, will_ ,” he complained. 

 

“- _after he hath laughed at such shallow follies in others, become the argument of his own scorn by falling in love – and such a man is Claudio_ ,” Seven recited dutifully. 

 

He handed the book back to Vanya, smirking at the way she snapped it shut and ignored his careful holding of her place. She obviously didn’t need much help remembering the play, let alone where she was in it. “I guess Father chewed you out for your terrible reading and comprehension skills.” 

 

“Close,” she allowed. “I failed a calculus test.” 

 

Five scoffed, fully aware  _his_ soulmate struggled very little with any form of mathematics. “From lack of sleep, maybe, but I’m betting you’re trying to make yourself inconspicuous again.” 

 

“Right in one.” 

 

“How tough was he? Any tears?” Five asked his questions lightheartedly with his hands behind his head like this wasn’t a sensitive topic, like he was joking – inwardly, anxiety swirled around in his stomach at the thought of the answers. 

 

Vanya looked down towards her feet, no longer swinging but crossed at the ankles and tucked beneath the chair. When she glanced back up at his, his breath nearly caught. The tiny grin playing on Vanya’s lips was so secret and shy it belonged on the face of a younger Seven. The face of a Seven who felt shame at sharing her emotions, felt unsure of her place in anyone’s heart. He hadn’t seen this smile since before their soulbond, before he allowed himself so close to her. Nostalgia tugged at his heart and he grinned back before she even spoke. 

 

“Honestly? It was pretty funny. I wanted to laugh the whole time. Father spent thirty minutes berating me like always for something I could have done easily. It felt nice to hear him waste his breath.” Her expression shifted before she lowered her voice to speak again, unnecessary in the empty room but a habit all of the Hargreeves children had when discussing any form of disobedience. “I have a remedial lesson with Pogo for an hour before lunch. We’ll be in the main library.” 

 

Pride rushed through him at his soulmate’s quick thinking. Every instance of their flawless teamwork pleased him, from using their differing schedules to sneak into Pogo’s office to their efforts towards training her powers. He lifted the hand closest to him, pressed a kiss to her knuckles, and relished in the blush blooming on her face. “I guess I’ll do some reading, then, if you won’t be around to distract me.” 

 

He should have expected her to whack him with the play in her hands, truthfully, but he laughed in both guilty amusement and pleased surprise when she did. “I’d still be reading if you hadn’t distracted me.” 

 

Theatrically clutching his gravely injured shoulder, Five feigned disbelief. “Me, distracting? All I’ve done is check up on my soulmate after she failed her exam and been mauled for my worries.” 

 

“If you’re going to bleed out, do so quietly,” Vanya deadpanned as she flipped through the pages of her play before settling on where she’d been. 

 

Five laughed hard, surprised at her snark. “I’ll leave you to it then, and go bleed out in the fifth-floor bathroom.” He stood, pushing his chair in and dropping a kiss to her head. “If you decide to take pity on the man you’ve doomed, you know where to find me.” 

 

“Ten on the dot, Pogo said. Don’t forget.” The teasing look on her face switched quickly to surprise for the smallest second before settling on abashed. “And thank you for returning my boots and my scarf this morning. I forgot about them until they were right in front of me.” 

 

Brow furrowed and stomach sinking, Five said, “I didn’t go to your room this morning, Vanya.” 

 

Vanya skipped confusion and immediately settled on quiet dread. “Then why hasn’t Mom said anything, yet?” 

 

 *****  

 

Five Hargreeves did not often seek out his mother. Both Ben and Vanya were far closer to her than he was, Diego even more so. However, in the face of her potentially ruining his life because he and Vanya were careless, Five made an exception. A rapid series of jumps – the den, the kitchen, the laundry room – yielded nothing. A thought occurred to him and he ended up in an alcove surrounded by individually lit pictures and a humming Mom picking at her embroidery. 

 

Her hands froze as she smiled at his sudden arrival. One of them held a needle threaded with gold; the other put down her work and patted the seat next to her. “Good morning, Five. Would you care to join me?” 

 

Shifting from one foot to the other, he shook his head. “No, thank you, Mom, but I would like to discuss-” 

 

Mom’s smile brightened even as her eyes sharpened. “I insist! It’s been so long since we’ve had a proper chat, now that you kids are so busy with training and missions, on top of your studies.” Five found himself unable to disobey the order in her blue eyes. He sat and she continued to speak. “I know you in particular have a bad habit of taking too much on, Five. You’ve made such progress with stopping time. Allison told me all about how you saved her, once she and Luther came back from the mission and took you to bed. What an extraordinary feat! Stopping time to save your sister’s life.” Her free hand took his and gripped it tightly. 

 

“I just don’t know what I would do, if one of you children were hurt.” 

 

She did not look away from him once when saying that, her gaze holding his fiercely. The message she seemed so determined to get across was clear. Five wrapped his other hand around hers, holding tight, and smiled at her. His lungs barely allowed the air to speak around the suffocating shock, gratefulness, and love he dared not express – not any more than she, apparently, dared to express her willingness to keep secrets. “Don’t worry, Mom. We’ll take care of each other. We’re all a family, after all. Not just a team.” 

 

The smile that slipped from her face when talking about the horror they’d faced in their last mission returned, bright and absolutely beatific. Five at last understood the draw his other siblings felt when she looked at him like that, like he’d made her so proud and happy just by being protective of his family. Mom gave his hand a final squeeze before withdrawing back to her embroidery. “What a wonderful attitude to have, Five. I hope the rest of your siblings eventually come to the same conclusion.” 

 

A distant shout of “Mom!” drew their attention and Five identified Diego’s light footfalls coming down the hall. Unsure of how he’d explain a sudden interest in chatting with their mother, Five nodded goodbye to Mom. She waved farewell, the gold thread following her movements. As he felt the familiar tug of jumping, Five glanced down and barely registered the golden watch Mom was detailing before his surroundings became the bathroom-turned-study-area he’d seen so much of, lately. He pushed the worry from his mind. Mom seemed content to keep their secret and he wouldn’t disservice her by not trusting what she didn’t say. 

 

Sitting scrunched in the bathtub with the faucet dripping, he focused his energy into more productive things. 

 

 *****  

 

Pogo never arrived late. Add the studious, no-nonsense demeanor he often wore to the fact that his entire life existed in the manor, unless Hargreeves requested he drive or do the shopping, it was no surprise Pogo was always punctual. The children appreciated it, with their tightly controlled schedules, and Reginald demanded it. Pogo was known to be be on time for everything. 

 

Including his scheduled remedial math session with Seven, so that Five found himself seated in Pogo’s desk chair, flipping through his journal to find where he’d left off, at ten o’clock sharp. In the past weeks, he had found enough time to read through most of the notes from their early childhood to early adolescence. He’d nearly caught up to when the children received their marks. After today, Five felt more than eager to make sure no one else had any indication of his soulmate’s identity. 

 

Of all the amusing and deplorable things the journal told him – from the first time Allison ever rumored Pogo, a rumor in the middle of a tantrum demanding he let her buy a skirt both too short and too sparkly for everyday wear, to the details of how Reginald had extracted Ben’s powers when he grew reluctant to use them in training – it had not given him any hint that Pogo knew of his relationship with Vanya. He hoped that the past few years would follow that pattern. Mostly, Pogo made note of his antagonistic relationship with Luther more than anything else. He wrote often enough about how Five looked down on his siblings from a young age, kept them at a distance, excelled in everything he did and scoffed when the others couldn’t manage the same. 

 

The callousness he’d treated his siblings with in the past now rubbed him the wrong way, now. Reading about it made him uncomfortable and ashamed, though he brushed the feelings off with a solid reminder of the work he'd done to bring them together now. Five dutifully ignored the voice that said it never would have happened without his connection to Vanya. Facing every aspect of his selfishness could wait for another day. 

 

Surely enough, there were multiple pages dedicated to the day the Umbrella Academy received their second mark, one for each wrist and earned a year apart. 

 

First, Pogo detailed a neat list of all the member’s marks. 

 

 _Number One – a gold locket inscribed with A + L_  

 _Number Two – a gray rabbit’s foot with a silver chain_  

 _Number Three – a full, silver moon_  

 _Number Four – a pair of_ _dog tags_ _, reading RA 32835289_  

 _Number Five – a W, split in two halves, one black and one white_  

 _Number Six – a ring of_ _orange and red_ _marigolds_  

 

An inkblot sat heavy on the empty space under Number Six. Beneath that, he wrote about the children’s reactions to their marks – as well as his and Hargreeves’. 

 

 _Luther seemed anxious to present his mark to his father, and understandably so. Master_ _Hargreeves_ _as often commented on how close One and Three seem to be; none of the comments are positive. The golden locket is a beautiful_ _soulmark_ _, to be sure. I only hope it does not cause the problems I fear will arise in the future. ...Should he remain diligent in his training and in his wishes to please Sir Reginald, there is hope for Luther yet._  

 

 _Grace had to encourage Diego to come forward and show his mark, though that surely has more to do with the turbulent relationship between Number Two and his father rather than anxiety over the_ _soulmark_ _. A rabbit’s foot is meant to bring good luck, supposedly, and Diego would do well to stumble across some of it. His stuttering has much improved under Grace’s patient tutelage...yet his father remains unimpressed and cold in his dealings with Two. Perhaps the soulmate waiting for him will be warm and kind, like the mother Diego clings to in search of such things._  

 

 _Allison,_ _to_ _much relief, did not have a matching locket on her wrist. Master_ _Hargreeves_ _is convinced this means she and Luther are not bound to each other. I have my doubts. A moon too closely relates to Luther, with his love of space and occasional talk of being an astronaut in the distant future. ...Master_ _Hargreeves_ _has agreed we should watch them_ _,_ _but there’s none of the desperate diligence I suspect he’d have if the marks had matched more closely..._  

 

 _Sir Reginald was equally dismissive of Four’s_ _soulmark_ _, though I found it to be intriguing indeed. His mark appeared as a pair of dog tags, embossed only with the soldier’s service code and number. I’ve not yet had the time to look into it, but they don’t appear to be a modern style of dog tags. ...I hope they aren’t too_ _outdated_ _. What cruelty it would be for Klaus to have a soulmate he could only see with the powers he fears so much._  

 

 _The_ _soulmark_ _Number Five received interested his father very little, as well. Five unsurprisingly just emitted impatience with the entire ordeal. The dual-colored letter is a little unique, when most marks manifest as pictures of things the bearer’s soulmate is associated with. Master_ _Hargreeves_ _will undoubtedly be weary of anyone with that particular initial coming around Five..._  

 

 _Number Six seemed surprised when his mark appeared; he smiled brighter than we’d seen in months. Sir Reginald disliked that, though I suspect he dislikes the thought of Ben becoming distracted from his training. ...and the mark is lovely – a bright wreath of Marigolds in orange and red. I hope that the brightness he has now, to reassure him he is and will be loved, brings Ben joy. It can be hard to find in such a strict,_ ~~_smothering_ ~~ _household._  

 

 _What Number Six feared, Number Seven lives. My heart is broken for young Vanya. She was both shocked and hurt at the lack of a_ _soulmark_ _and who could blame her? ...Reginald all but sneered at her. He admitted earlier it is for the best she did not receive a mark._ ~~_I worry that this all somehow relates_   ~~

 

The memory of receiving their soulmarks burned bright in Five’s mind, even after three years. Pogo captured the night well; though the Hargreeves children attempted hiding their concerns or pleasure, they were all only successful to a certain degree. In Pogo’s notes about the following month, which Five managed to read in the rest of the hour, marked at least himself and Seven as better actors under less pressure. Nothing in the journal revealed a hint of their mark or bond. Five felt a weight he hadn’t realized was there lift from his shoulders, his relief palpable. The book commented on the lingering happiness Ben exuded and the tension between Allison and Luther. Five remembered those details more hazily. 

 

He ended the hour more relaxed than when he first entered the office. Five carefully tucked the journal back in the drawer it usually resided in; he pushed in the chair and straightened the paper’s his reading had jostled. There was no trace of him left. Pogo was due back in eight minutes. He gave the room a final check, jumping away in a flash of blue and the familiar suction, compression, rush process. 

 

*****

 

Five found himself back in the bathroom after a heavy lunch. Between the practice he managed to fit in after his talk with Mom and the practice planned for the next few hours, Five knew he would be exhausted later. The longer nights of early December already left a lethargic feel over the evenings as of late. Klaus only snuck out rarely with the cold settling in. Ben spent most of his time tucked in an armchair with a book before the fire, warding off the cold. Both Vanya and Five joined him once in a while, though never on the same night. 

 

He dared not spent too much time wasted on small things like pleasure reading. Were it not a good way to both privately talk and unwind with his brother, he may have passed up the opportunities all together. Ben made him laugh with quick criticisms of his current book, asked thought-provoking and skeptical questions about Five’s own choice. 

 

The time management he stuck to diligently worked well enough. Five arrived promptly and stayed the entire duration of all classes, missions, and meetings. Dinner continued to be the only meal he regularly attended. He only missed breakfast on days he’d gotten little sleep, sneaking down to the kitchen and gathering his own quick meal, then immediately starting on his work. Many mornings found him working through breakfast on his equations or control and eating granola bars and fresh fruit. Lunch was hit or miss, depending on his mood and the rare expectation of Reginald’s attendance. Though he forced himself to make an effort of attending meals, Five also refused to stop in the middle of a successful run or possible breakthrough with his various theories and equations. 

 

His diligence paid off indeed, when he froze the gushing bath tub faucet for a full five minutes. The blue sphere did not waver for nearly four and a half; it only dimmed and cracked in the last thirty seconds, and Five still had time to shut the water off before his feet got wet. His control was much improved from where he’d started. 

 

He didn’t feel it was improved enough from when his father demanded he excel faster, push himself harder. He wasn’t sure if that feeling stemmed from Reginald’s harsh commands or his own need to constantly reach further. The praise Vanya, Pogo, and now Mom lavished on him about his work soothed the ambition boiling in his veins and buzzing down his spine. They all commended him for turning to this new branch of time manipulation; all of them, at one point or another, warned him time travel could be dangerous and unpredictable, though without the harsh impatience his father used when doing just that.

 

They did so out of love, because they worried for him. It shouldn't have been a surprise when he jumped to Vanya's room before dinner and she immediately set to scolding him for his noticeably fatigued appearance. Five sat heavily on the bed seconds after he arrived. The bags under his eyes were highlighted by distinctly pale skin. He might even be as pale as Vanya now, he mused as she stared him down with an accusing expression.

 

“Five, it’s not even dinner and you look exhausted. You’ve been working too hard. Again.” She frowned at him from her desk even as her eyes followed the slide of his tie as it pulled free from his collar and wrapped around his hand lazily. 

 

He just smirked and kicked off his shoes, pointedly tossing his half-written essay and accompanying textbook on her desk for later tonight. 

 

“If you want, I’ll sit with Ben tonight and tell him you need to rest. I’m sure he’d understand a rain check.” 

 

“This is the rain check,” Five huffed. “I blew him off earlier this week after our obstacle training because Pogo had a theory about how to maximize the size of my spheres. I used Luther to ferry the apology, too; I jumped to Pogo’s office straight from the kitchen.” He closed his eyes briefly and wished he weren’t so aware of the mere twelve minutes before they needed to leave for dinner. “Besides, all I’ve got is an essay and a bit of reading. I can learn about Roman war strategies in front of the fire with my most studious brother. Sounds like a good time.” 

 

Seven finally grinned, drawing out his own. “Fine. But don’t stay up too late.” 

 

“But Vanya, it’s a Saturday night,” he whined. 

 

“Your curfew is eight thirty, regardless of the nine o’clock standard. I want to go practice before breakfast.” 

 

He loved the way her eyes glittered at the thought of her powers now, just the smallest bit. She started to take pride in her control. Five knew it was half due to the practices, half due to her emotional control lately. The mug at Griddy’s being the exception – and likely due to the explosive anger Five himself felt, and transferred to Vanya, he knew – she let very little slip since the storm in the sound room. Vanya’s pleased, amused attitude at collecting all the secrets their father tried to keep from her grew with her confidence in the powers she flexed and tested. Five loved taking her to train her powers. 

 

“An early night in. We’re already acting like an old married couple.” 

 

Five watched the flush grow from Vanya’s neck to the tips of her ears and laughingly tugged her hair, tossed her a goodbye, and jumped away from her incoming indignant shove. He appeared before the bathroom mirror to wash up, chucking. It shocked Five to see himself so happy, not quite in the open but away from the comfort of being hidden away with Seven. He looked good, looked alive, he thought. 

 

 *****  

 

“With apparition, the magic user needs to visualize where they’re going to end up. They have to have been to their destination, or close enough for them to walk as far as they need to go. Only the strongest witches and wizards can use long distance apparition. Voldemort can only apparate rough the distance of the size of England, apparently,” Ben rambled, one hand stroking the cover of his closed Harry Potter hardback. “Their limitations are much different than yours, aren’t they?” 

 

Five set his textbook aside, having long ago bookmarked his page in the middle of a riveting chapter about the Roman’s famous siege strategies, and sipped his hot chocolate. “Very,” he agreed, “as I don’t need to have physically been somewhere to jump to that location. Seeing a picture or the outside of the building will help with accuracy and chance of survival, but I can theoretically jump anywhere I can imagine that exists.” 

 

“And your distance. You can’t jump entire countries, though there’s a size difference. What is the furthest you’ve jumped?” Ben leaned forward, his voice insistent. It was rare to see him so lively. Five set his drink on the coffee table before them and indulged his energy. 

 

“I can jump nearly two thirds of the way across New York on a day when I’m fully rested and well fed, and jumping alone to a familiar place. My best distance so far is 183.1 miles. That was early in the spring this year and before I got so caught up with freezing time.” 

 

Ben seemed suitably impressed, and asked in an awed voice, “How did it feel, so jump so far away at once?” 

 

“Pogo and Diego had to carry me to the car. My best jump before that was only 145 or so. Father claimed that wasn’t a good enough step up from when I’d hit the 125 mark, so he pushed me harder. He drove me 200 miles away from home. He dumped me on some nowhere street with a bunch of suburban houses, told me Pogo had instructions to pick me up no less than 175 miles out. Were I to fail to hit my mark, I’d have to walk the rest of the way home. Or try to jump it again.” 

 

“You’d have to walk the rest,” Ben echoed. His brother still sat forward, but his shoulders slumped in defeat rather than hunched in interest. One hand moved from his book to the center of his torso. The fingers splayed against his shirt were long, lean, and tense. Five could imagine his thoughts easily enough. 

 

“But a part of me is relieved,” he said, lowly, “to know I can go so far. It means that I could be capable of escaping with others further than I’ve tried, maybe jumping more and more people with practice. I feel better knowing we have a safety net.” 

 

Gripping the book once again, Ben nodded. His eyes were far away and even without his fingers pressed to his chest, Five knew his thoughts still centered around it. 

 

Ben opened his mouth to speak before changing his mind and taking a large gulp of his own hot chocolate. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Do you ever think about your soulmate, Five, about what they’re like?” 

 

His eyes only met Five’s in the briefest of flickers, still surely reading the shock in them at the question. Where had that come from? He forced himself to stay on track and attempt to give Ben an answer that didn’t involve lying. “Despite what...everyone thinks, pretty much,” he said and tried to keep any bite out of it, “I’ve always trusted that my mark leads to someone who loves me. The relationship could be easy, could be a roller coaster, could be strong and turbulent and gentle. But if it’s anything like the love of lore, I don’t care what I have to do or how I have to find my soulmate.” 

 

Self-consciously chuckling at his speech, Five added, “Besides, I could use someone that brings out the best in me.” 

 

Settled comfortably into his chair after Five’s answer, Ben picked up his novel and removed the tasseled bookmark. It was blue and bronze, embellished with an eagle with wings spread wide and a scroll clasped between its talons. His brother was just the right age to get a Hogwarts letter when the first book fell into his hands, running around the house and sorting his siblings with color-coordinated paper ties. Nearly half of them were given ties of silver and green, which formed a strange sort of alliance between Allison, Klaus, and Five for a time. Both Luther and Diego ended up in gold and red. Ben dressed himself in blue and bronze; he gave Vanya the lone yellow and black tie. Seeing this small gesture of his childhood tucked in Ben’s favorite books made Five smile, then smile even wider when he leaned over the arm of his chair to tease Ben. 

 

“So,” he said with amusement thick in his voice, “how many re-reads is that now?” 

 

His brother laughed softly and kept his eyes on the page. “Seven, a lucky number.” 

 

“Very lucky, I hear.” 

 

“I read them when I’m feeling nostalgic, sometimes, or when I need something uplifting.” 

 

“Then I’m glad you have them. They sound much better than learning the Romans were both sophisticated enough to use illness as a weapon against their enemy and also primitive enough to throw rotting corpses over the enemy’s walls with catapults.” 

 

Ben wrinkled his nose and laughed loud enough to draw the attention of Diego nearby, giving them a vaguely annoyed look before returning to his own textbook. “Wait until you to get to the part about the skulls.” 


	16. You don't know that you're in over your head

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Five just wanted to have a nice night - reading with Ben, getting donuts, and relaxing with Vanya. All of that happens, just not exactly according to plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all I'm so excited for this chapter you don't even know. It's really gonna get the ball rolling, introducing new things and people, shaking things up. I'm excited to reveal more of the plot, since a lot of the character development had to take place before all of the plot blocks were placed. Five experiences something resembling an anxiety attack in this chapter, so watch out for everything around the "What do you get when you take Five from Seven?" sequence if that affects you at all!
> 
> Chapter title from Lennon Stella.

The part in his textbook mentioning the skulls Ben warned him about escaped him, as did the next two sub-sections of the chapter covering battle formations and training regimens. Five read from his place in siege tactics to the end of the chapter twice. Neither time yielded a decent amount of use; Ben’s words distracted him from his reading and kept Five firmly in his head. The turning of pages and reading of text were only motions to him. Studying seemed to be a lost cause. 

 

The culprit of this crime of distraction bid him goodnight halfway through his second attempt at covering the information he’d probably need for his class tomorrow.  Five mumbled a farewell and waved a hand in Ben’s direction as his brother drifted off to bed with his head still in the inked pages he tucked under his arm to better climb the stairs. 

 

After his second try at studying failed him, Five snapped his book shut and looked around for the person his thoughts had been frustratingly focused on since Ben asked his questions. 

 

Most of the Hargreeves children were scattered around the den in various states of quiet distraction. Both Ben and Diego chose to retire earlier than necessary, though Five couldn’t honestly say if Diego’s absence was one to be suspicious of. Mom sat perched atop one of the bar stools, her legs crossed at the ankle and folded demurely to the side. He recalled Vanya sitting in exactly that fashion just that morning. Mom plucked at her embroidery – not the golden watch Five spotted earlier, but a swirl of pink, white, and tan that would probably look more like an actual picture given a few more hours of work. Klaus sat beside her, laying with his back supported on one bar stool and his feet atop another. He seemed to be entertaining himself and Mom by dramatically reading from his own copy of  _Much Ado About Nothing_ in varying voices for the different characters; he even managed to keep his voice down while doing so, though Five couldn’t say if that was due to Mom’s presence or Klaus’s own spotty thoughtfulness. On the couch nearest the West End, Luther worked with a chemistry textbook. He dutifully copied the relevant information, highlighting as he went. Five had no problem picturing a close-up of Luther’s notes in his mind’s eye, color-coded bullets and detailed footnotes abound. 

 

Finally, he settled his gaze on both Allison and Vanya. Their heads were bent over the chess table tucked away in the corner of the room. Surprise very nearly prompted him to go ask the two how that came about, and he wished he’d paid more attention to the room’s movements when he joined Ben in sitting with his back to most of them. 

 

No sooner than Five had registered the small shock, Vanya’s lips curled up at the edges like when she didn’t want to laugh out loud. She turned to look at him and left Allison to contemplate her next move without an audience. 

 

Five raised his brows at her. 

 

One of her shoulders lifted in a minuscule shrug; the left side of her mouth climbed higher a fraction. 

 

He narrowed his eyes in Allison’s direction, switching his gaze back to Vanya for conformation. 

 

She gave him a telescopic nod and turned back to the board to find Allison watching the both of them. 

 

Her lips were not poised in an annoyed pout as Five imagined they would be, but pressed together a bit in thought. She turned away from him quickly, her long hair tumbling after her, until she was once again staring down her options on the board. The tension in her shoulders spoke of discomfort. He could only see clearly the back of Allison’s head and the small but intricate braid that kept her hair out of her eyes from his seat, but did see the way her head dipped as if in concentration for a few moments before raising back up to address Vanya. Seven answered whatever question Allison had asked. 

 

The light amusement blanketing their bond hadn’t changed, so Five resolved to leave the two alone. 

 

He settled back into the stiff armchair and stared up at the past year’s Academy photo, proudly placed above the mantle in a gilded, ornate frame Mom dusted every other day. None of the people in the picture were on his mind, however. 

 

Vanya reigned in his thoughts – a thing he tried to avoid, most times, as to protect her and himself. He could never allow himself to appear distracted by Vanya in front of Reginald or Pogo. Five feared letting the smallest things slip in around the wrong people, and so kept his mask as firm as possible. Surely, his thoughts would be safe facing the fire with less than an hour until his appointed curfew. 

 

Ben’s unexpected question lingered and Five  _did_ take the time to think about his soulmate. He had been careful not to lie to Ben, thanks to the frustratingly sincere attitude he attempted to approach all of his siblings with nowadays. Five knew, even before there were whispers between the children about the marks they would receive, that Vanya was it. He couldn’t prove that Seven would be his soulmate when the time came, but he almost wouldn’t have cared if she wasn’t. Five put very little stock in destiny or fate, and less in divine intervention. There were cases of soulmates who never fell in love: some developed a strong platonic bond, records of familial bonds were not unheard of, and some soulmates loved each other too much to be together, only causing mayhem and destruction of their selves trying to stay with their intended. But Vanya – Vanya was different than anyone Five had ever known, would ever meet. 

 

In the beginning, they were just two lonely kids drawn to one another. Seven, ostracized for a supposed lack of special abilities, and Five, ostracized for his ambition to hone his special ability. The others looked down on Seven; Five looked down on the others. Maybe that strange dynamic held responsibility for bringing them together, drawing Five's sharp eye to Vanya's soft side. 

 

(Sometimes, he thought of the very first notation Pogo made of his life in that too-knowledgeable journal. Sometimes, he thought of the way he preferred Vanya before there were separations between Her and Us. Sometimes, he wondered what would have happened if no such separations existed.) 

 

His conscious devotion to Seven began when Hargreeves began preparing the Umbrella Academy for their public debut. They must have been as young as nine when the uniforms for missions were introduced for team training, eleven when Pogo started coaching them on what to say in front of the press. Hardly a month after the addition of public relations tutoring to the team training sessions, Five's private training and math sessions, and his demanding classwork, Five started spending his free time far away from the Umbrella Academy and everyone associated with it. This left Mom and Seven the only two people Five willingly socialized with, the reticence towards his team members angering his father to no end. The harder he fought to make Number Five another one of his perfectly disciplined team, the harder Five fought to do exactly the opposite. 

 

And so, where he was once the only one to favor Vanya, Vanya became the only one he favored at all. 

 

She seemed both hesitant and hungry when Five first approached her all those years ago. He’d read before how an injured animal could shy from a helping hand, instincts conflicted on whether to accept the help or run from the larger predator. Seven was like that. Five would jump to her hiding places, the library she preferred and the music room and a few others, and study beside her or listen as she played. Vanya never dared ask what he thought he was doing, never told him to leave, never did anything she thought could anger him. He was the first to make conversation due to her hesitance, the first to make her laugh and smile. Vanya basked in the attention he bestowed upon her after understanding Five only meant to escape the rest of the house. She smiled brighter every time he requested she play him a certain song or asked how her classes were. For the first time, Five felt he had someone to confide in and found himself growing both exceedingly fond and protective of Seven. He never allowed Reginald to see how much time they spent together – sometimes causing him to jump away on a dime if he and Vanya were to be happened upon. 

 

Five spent years cultivating his image as the arrogant family loner. Unlike Diego who often lashed out in anger, Five mocked and mouthed off for his own amusement. Klaus skipped or slept through their lessons out of stubborn indifference; Five actively ignored lessons too far below his level and worked on whatever he wanted. Nothing his siblings or father did was ever truly worth his  _time_. Or so he told everyone. 

 

A large part of him had been selfishly pleased when Vanya seemed to crave his attention, after a time. He spoke to her about her interests, listened to her opinions, and cared for her. Five put forth effort to understand Vanya. Five went out of his way to spend time with Vanya. Five made Vanya feel special. 

 

The novelty of her affection wore off, and Five began to feel more comfortable around Seven, and so he began to wonder why no one else bothered to speak to her. Or seemed interested in her, or wanted her around. At best, she was invited to join a conversation with Ben or Klaus. The rest of his teammates apparently thought Seven to be invisible. 

 

Caring about Vanya led to caring about how she was treated, which led to this and that and left him in this mess. Caring about each and every one of his frequently dense and chaotic siblings. He grinned to himself and jumped to his bedroom. 

 

He had thirty minutes until his curfew – just enough time for a snack. 

 

*****

 

Dressed in thick jeans and a wool coat, Five hardly felt the frozen wind as he walked around the corner of Griddy’s. The strange mix of bright neon lights along the storefront and dark shadows near the dumpsters provided the perfect cover for one of his jumps, just as the scattered nightlife of the city muffled the noise of spatial travel. He hit the ground at a brisk walk and blended right in on the sidewalk. A tall, familiar-looking man held the door for a woman in a smart suit to exit the shop, and then for Five to enter. He thanked the man aloud and was silently thankful for the lack of a line at the counter. 

 

A woman waved him to the counter right away, ready to take his order. 

 

“Two chocolate with sprinkles, three cinnamon rolls, and two bottles of milk to go, please.” 

 

Behind the counter was a sweet blonde woman, Agnes on her name tag, and Five recognized her as their waitress on the disastrous double date – as well as the tall man as her escort home that night. He had been dressed the same as the woman he held the door for, in a sharp black suit; Five wondered if they worked together. 

 

He smiled at her as he paid, back to being more focused on getting home on time than the details of familiar faces. There wouldn’t be a wait on his choices due to the well-stocked pastry display in preparation of families seeking desert and night owls seeking breakfast while going to work. The curfew Vanya imposed was eight thirty, so he still had twenty minutes to get home. Nonetheless, Five only relaxed when the woman brought him a pastry bag and his drinks. 

 

“Get home quickly,” the woman urged, “it’s cold out.” 

 

“Don’t worry, ma’am, I’ve got a ride just around the corner.” 

 

She smiled, obviously relieved he wouldn’t be walking home in the cold. Five smiled right back, green eyes sparkling, and slipped all of his change into the tip jar the moment she turned around to answer a coffee request. He exited the shop feeling warm, taking the same corner with the intention of disappearing a few steps into the shadows. 

 

Except on the other side of the dumpsters, the two people were having a half-whispered argument. Five, hesitant to jump in front of strangers and annoyed his usual spot was occupied, made to slink away. 

 

“-not like we can look up superheroes in the phone book, you know.” 

 

Five frowned, froze, and turned to take two steps back towards the dumpster closest to him and crouch out of sight. Locally, there was only a single group of people with special abilities. Sitting beside the stinking trash, he cursed Hargreeves for putting the kids in a situation they could be hunted down. While neither of the two strangers seemed familiar, they could easily work for any number of people whose lives the Academy interfered with. The pair in the alley continued speaking and Five waited with baited breath to see why they were trying to hunt down superheroes. 

 

“I think superheroes is a little generous, Hazel. So, these kids have some superpowers? Big deal.” 

 

“Superpowered kids with no discernible way to trace them, except following them home if we catch them out and about. The desk jockeys really did some digging for this one, huh?” 

 

“Look, tracking isn’t our specialty, but we’re a damn sight better than we used to be. Remember that writer in Alexandria?” 

 

An unwilling chuckle came from the big guy, the sound of a fond memory reluctantly distracting him from his upset. “The one that took us two weeks to track down,” he started. 

 

“-and two minutes to kill,” he and the woman finished as one. They shared a laugh over some poor writer’s fate, which was probably both unfortunate and cut short. 

 

“Yeah...,” he sighed. “Yeah, alright. Let’s get to tracking these kids. The sooner we finish this job, the sooner we can take a break. I’m telling you, my acupuncturist says all this stress stays in your body, causing fatigue, aches and pains-” 

 

“The Hargreeves, Hazel, focus.” Her partner snapped back to attention, his rambling, vocalized train of thought ending abruptly. He made a few noises of agreement, followed by the sounds of their feet picking up and carrying them away from Five. As they were leaving, the woman chuckled and said, “Hey, Hazel, what do you get when you take Five from Seven?” 

 

“A raise, hopefully.” 

 

Five rounded the corner near the shop entrance, chanting, “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” and gathering the energy to jump. The shaking of his hands was hidden by the blue glow of spatial jumping. The warm laughter of strangers hunting his family down rang in his ears as he left the crisp night air on a downtown sidewalk for the familiar shadows of his expansive home. 

 

He forgot all about the reason for his trip until his hands were empty, the bag of pastries plopping sadly at his feet as one milk bottle rolled beneath his desk chair and the other went towards his closet. As he bent to retrieve the drinks, only one thought played through his mind. 

 

 _What do you get when you take Five from Seven?_  

 

They – whoever they were, and Five wasn’t even sure if Hazel was a real name or a code name – wanted to separate Five and Seven. They were hunting down the Hargreeves, but was it just the two of them, or all of the Hargreeves children? What had Five or Vanya done to them or whoever they worked for?  Hazel mentioned both desk jockeys and a raise, so there’s obviously a hierarchy. From how far up did their orders come? Who did they come from? What, exactly, were the orders that put the two strangers in well-tailored suits in pursuit of them? 

 

 _What do you get when you take Five from Seven?_  

 

Five tried, desperately, to focus on what he knew. He was still crouched to retrieve the drinks, the donuts safely on the desk, but unable to pull himself away from his thoughts. His chest felt tight. He tried to take a deep breath. What did he know? 

 

There were (at least) two people looking for the Hargreeves children. 

 

One of them was a tall, broad man with well-kept facial hair. He had light hair, light eyes, and a deep voice. He wore a finely tailored, though bare of embellishments, black suit with a white undershirt. He carried a briefcase. He saw an acupuncturist, felt dissatisfied with his superiors at work if not the job itself, and felt close enough to his partner to openly complain about their shared assignment. The woman called him Hazel. 

 

The other was a dark-eyed woman with short, dark hair. She was compactly built and average height. She wore the exact same suit as her partner, minus the briefcase. Unlike her partner, she apparently wasn’t compelled to complain about the work and instead wanted to get down to business. She also seemed used to calming the man’s temper, leading him back to work in the process. 

 

Together, they tracked and killed a writer in Alexandria. 

 

They had orders involving the Hargreeves that came from above them. 

 

Those orders possibly specified the separation of Five and Vanya. 

 

 _What do you get when you take Five from Seven?_  

 

His knees protested being pressed against the cold wood floors, the crouch he tried to maintain having given way to full on kneeling on the ground. His hands were splayed in front of him, eyes unseeing and focused on them. His ribs were fractured again – at least, it felt like it. His mouth tasted like ash. He couldn’t breathe and he couldn’t think and this,  _this is what fear feels like_ , he thought, wildly.  _I_ _’m afraid_ , he thought. 

 

 _What do you get when you take Five from Seven?_  

 

Five knew fear, from waking in the dark all alone to staring down a bullet with the only chance at survival banking on his will to live. Five knew fear and had conquered it. Five knew this fear, and would conquer it, too. He forced himself to calm down, practicing the breathing methods Vanya learned for the eventually clarinet she wanted to learn to play. She taught them to Five on a whim after he teased her about meditating during her study hours. Ironically, he used them in a much closer fashion to mediation than Vanya, since they came in handy when Five felt his lungs constrict and his chest ache. 

 

 _What do you get when you take Five from Seven?_  

 

He started at the sound of feet bounding up the stairs down the hall, too reckless and quick to be anyone but Klaus. The others would retire soon. Seven would be on her way up the stairs herself, likely as soon as his curfew was in effect. They would need to talk about everything Five witnessed, decide another plan of action for another active problem. 

 

Five stood, brushing his hands off and with aching knees. He picked up the drinks he’d bought and placed them beside the to go bag. Gazing forlornly at the donuts, Five wondered if things would ever be simple again. Everything seemed to be going from bad to worse. Luther and Allison were suddenly trading powers and knowing too many secrets. Klaus had repeatedly been locked up with dead bodies in the middle of the night, and it would likely happen again. Vanya not only had to be careful with her interactions with the others, but also powers and soulmark. 

 

Allison could betray them on a whim, if it suited her for the moment. Luther could do the same, gaining favor with their father and turning his eyes away from One and Three’s soulmarks for a while. The path Klaus was going down seemed dark enough already without additional reasons to turn to drugs and debauchery to escape Reginald. And Vanya... 

 

 _What do you get when you take Five from Seven?_  

 

Ashamed and angry at his earlier freak out, Five forcibly shoved his negative thoughts away. He tidied his room, jumped to the bathroom to make himself presentable again, made sure neither the cinnamon rolls or the donuts were squished, sat and waited for Seven to come to him when everyone else was in bed or busy. 

 

She slipped through the door at nine-oh-five, lighting up at the familiar Griddy’s bag and tucking her toes under his thigh when she sat down next to him. Her brown eyes smiled at him even when her mouth was talking, chewing, laughing. Five kissed her softly, out of nowhere and out of pure adoration. Seven giggled when he pulled away and wiped one of her donut’s sprinkles from his lips. She asked him to braid her hair for the night; he savored the easy intimacy of twisting her hair into place, the closeness he enjoyed while Vanya half-leaned against his chest and drew invisible patterns on his leg with her fingers while he worked. 

 

He told her of the strangers when the lights were off and they were curled around each other under the blankets. She told him about the fear she felt, white hot and fleeting, and he confirmed it was his own. Five promised her the same thing he’d been telling himself since he heard that vile fucking joke outside Griddy’s. 

 

No one would be taking Vanya anywhere. 

 

*****

 

Five was startled awake in the dead of the night. The room was dark enough it took several seconds for his eyes to adjust. He let out a sharp breath, relieved it was just Vanya and there was no Academy alarm blaring. Blinking away sleep and sitting up, he mumbled, “What’s going on? What’s wrong?” 

 

“I think,” she said, voice low, “that Dad just came to take Klaus away.” She put her finger to her lips and then pointed at the shared wall between Four and Five’s rooms. Surely enough, there was a bit of a racket next door. 

 

He suddenly felt much more awake, more alert, at the thought of Four being dragged off and held captive in a mausoleum for however many hours until daylight. They both grew quiet, Five straining his ears to hear everything. Klaus never said a word. He seemed to be moving around his room and getting dressed. Five guessed their father stood in Four’s doorway, as he usually did, while speaking sharply and impatiently. After a few moments, his voice grew harsher and something solid struck the ground. It sounded like the walking stick he liked to carry around and bang on the floor to gather the Academy’s attention. Klaus started crying, softly. 

 

Then there were three people moving down the hall, the stairs, and towards the door. 

 

Five and Vanya threw the blankets off their legs at the same time, tumbling over one another to get out the bed and dancing around each other to find their shoes and coats. 

 

“Wait, wait, just a second,” Vanya said, suddenly and right before darting out the door on silent, socked feet. 

 

He tied his shoes, buttoned his coat, and was wrapping his scarf around his neck when she came back. She had a thick quilt folded over one arm and a weird cylinder tucked under her other arm. Vanya tossed him the quilt and moved to his desk. Five watched as she pulled batteries out of pocket and began fiddling with the cylinder, now in the open and recognizable as a lantern. His heart swelled at her thoughtfulness – for both Four and himself – and he took her hand the second she offered it. 

 

Five brushed a kiss across her knuckles, and she blushed just like the first time he’d ever done that. With a smile, he thanked her. 

 

“The mausoleum will be dark, and I imagine also pretty cold. We still have hours til daylight. I think we should swing by the kitchen, too, and take Klaus a thermos of something warm to drink. He could get sick! It’s the _middle_ of  _November_.” 

 

He kissed the worried wrinkle between her eyebrows away and jumped to the kitchen, helping Vanya prepare a proper “locked in the crypts on a winter’s night” gift basket. Four would need it. 


	17. I remember when your head caught flame

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Five goes to his first ever sleep over. Diego and Reginald try a new training method, to everyone's horror.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've officially added the Child Abuse tag because... c'mon guys. Reginald Hargreeves in a terrible father: confirmed. On the other hand, there's a good dose of fluff and some laughs before the tag comes (blatantly) into play. Thank you for all the kudos and comments, guys. <3 Happy Halloween!
> 
> Chapter title from Lorde.

The cemetery Reginald Hargreeves preferred to hold his adoptive child hostage in for a few nights a month was old, older than most of the rest of the city and right on the edge of it. It was clear that most of the humongous plot of land had been added later, the gravestones growing larger and more detailed, the dates growing more modern the closer they were to the wrought iron gates. Five jumped them right inside, immediately pulling Vanya into a mostly barren hydrangea shrub when he saw that Pogo and their father were making their way towards the gates. 

 

Vanya had her arms full of “cemetery sleep-over supplies” and nearly dropped them all when Five huddled her into the bush, but he wrapped a steadying arm around her as they crouched between the shrubs and the fence. She huffed indignantly; Five grinned and ignored her baleful look. They froze in place, listening to the sounds of footsteps or the gates creaking. He was grateful for the darkness and the shrubs, even if they were more lumps of twisting branches and some stubborn leaves than actual greenery this time of the year. It kept them hidden well enough. 

 

He waited until the gate closed, clanging together dully in the quiet sound of an early winter night. Five ushered Vanya around the edge of the shrubs and towards the center of the cemetery. When he heard the familiar purr of Reginald’s car taking off, Five finally allowed himself to relax. 

 

The mausoleums were at the back of the cemetery, perfectly centered in a towering cluster of granite and marble sentinels. Five took the blankets draped over one of Vanya’s arms, transferring them to his own, and wrapped his free arm around her. He jumped them inside the largest mausoleum and immediately wish he’d had the forethought to turn on the lantern Vanya carried. The second the light from his spatial manipulation faded, they were entrenched in darkness. 

 

Five took a deep breath, tried to tell himself that they wouldn’t be in the dark for long. He could already hear Vanya fumbling with the lantern, after all. There was no reason to be afraid. There was no reason for his chest to start tightening. 

 

Light bloomed from the lantern, throwing shadows across the room. His eyes adjusted quickly and he looked to Vanya, then around for Klaus. 

 

Four was curled up in the corner, sitting under a row of tombs as far away from the door as possible. He was dressed in the jacket and schoolboy shorts of the Academy’s uniform, even in the near-freezing night. His green eyes were huge, flitting between Five and Vanya, and beneath them were the dark smudges of sleepless night and tear stains. He looked at them as if he couldn’t believe they were real, silent and shocked. Vanya took a tentative step forward. 

 

That was all it took. Klaus catapulted from his spot and launched himself into Vanya’s arms. Five nearly had to lunge to catch the lantern when Four knocked it from her hands – he was not willing to risk breaking their only light source – but the backpack she wore didn’t budge from its place. He took the lantern and blankets to a large, ornate stone bench placed along one of the walls. Once he’d cleared off the cobwebs, it seemed a good enough place to set up camp. Hanging the lantern from a dusty candle holder, he began turning the cold granite bench into something of a blanket nest/couch. Behind him, Klaus had his face buried in Vanya’s shoulder but was still speaking to her swiftly and incoherently, at least from a distance. Five felt equal parts concern over his brother’s mental and physical states. He was relieved Klaus had the good sense to wear his thickest pair of knee-high socks. The stone walls around him sucked any warmth from the room. 

 

He hoped they’d brought enough blankets. 

 

 *****  

 

It took nearly half an hour to warm Klaus up, equal to the amount of time he’d already been there before their arrival. Four sat sandwiched between Five and Vanya on the blanket-draped bench; Vanya insisted they warm him up immediately. She and Five shared worried looks over Klaus’s head even after he had stopped shaking, chugged half of the thermos of chamomile tea, and put on the sweater Five swiped from his room. A blanket was spread over all three of their laps and both Four and Seven had drawn their legs onto the bench. Klaus chattered the entire time, though there were long moments he went silent and closed his eyes or flinched and stuttered over what he was saying at the time. 

 

Five didn’t know much about Four’s powers; he’d been reluctant to hone or even use them for as long as Five could remember. One of his earliest memories was of Four screaming about the spirits that wouldn’t leave him alone. He hated to see his brother suffer, and so far Klaus had only found one way to make the living nightmare stop. 

 

Only after Four is sufficiently warmed and calm, Five slipped his hand into his coat and fished around the hidden breast pocket. His fingers curled around one of the three joints he’d swiped from Klaus’s room and then the accompanying lighter. With a grin, he held them out both to his brother with a flourish. Four’s mouth froze around whatever he’d been saying and his eyes lit up. He through his arms around Five’s neck, tugging the blanket off Vanya’s lap in the process. 

 

“You are the best siblings in the world, I swear to  _fuck_ ,” Klaus cried. 

 

“Yes, yes, you’re welcome, Klaus.” He chuckled and pushed Four back into his seat, settling the blanket over all of them once again with a fond yet annoyed huff. 

 

He lit the joint and inhaled nearly a quarter of it on the first hit, eyes closed and face serene as he drew the smoke into his lungs. Five caught Seven’s look of surprise, felt her mingled amusement and confusion. He only shrugged, smiling a bit, and nodded at the way Klaus was quickly melting into true relaxation between the two of them. Klaus exhaled, smoke filling the air between the three of them. 

 

They’d have to air the place out before Father got back, but they had time. Sunrise wouldn’t come for another five hours. That gave them at least four hours, Five figured. And he had two more joints tucked away in case Klaus got antsy before then.  

 

Four brought the joint to his lips for a second time and seemed to savor it just as much as the first hit. He leaned back into the bench, tossed an arm over Vanya’s shoulders, and lazily offered the joint to Five. 

 

He felt both a flash of irrational annoyance from himself and a spike in the surprise Vanya’d been exuding for the last few minutes. Five pushed down his irritation, resolved not to be jealous of his brother locked in a room full of dead bodies and their spirits, and focused instead on the way Vanya was most definitely watching to see what he would do. 

 

It was no secret in the Hargreeves household that Klaus enjoyed various types of mind-altering substances. He hardly tried to hide it anymore, unless Mom or Pogo were around, though his slyness around them seemed to be more an effort to avoid their disappointment than their anger. Diego joined Klaus a few times, mostly out of rebellion towards their father. There were whispers among the kids that Allison also smoked with Four once in a blue moon, but Five couldn’t confirm or deny those rumors. It wasn’t common knowledge that Five himself indulged every now and then, after all. But Vanya knew. He tried to keep as few secrets as possible from her. 

 

Apparently, seeing it and hearing it were different enough to catch her attention. Five took the joint from Four and wrapped his smirking lips around it without looking away from Seven. He drew the smoke in like an old friend, a familiar weight snaking down his throat. The way Vanya’s eyes never left his mouth made his heart race, and his mind conjured images of the two of them spending lazy, hidden afternoons on their own with whatever composer Vanya was studying at the moment playing, rotating between curling smoke, soft smiles, slow kisses. He cast them aside as soon as they’d come, expelling daydreams and exhaling the smoke in his lungs at once. They were here for Four, not flirting, he told himself. 

 

But he wouldn’t forget the curious expression that stole over Seven’s face, or the watchfulness of her eyes. 

 

Five passed it back to Klaus, watched as he took another hit, glittery purple fingernails catching the lantern light. When he finished, he turned to Seven with raised eyebrows. 

 

He hadn’t been expecting that, but Vanya looked even more shocked than he felt. Their dual surprise echoed between them, not touched at all by the amusement Four was showing. 

 

When she’d recovered, Vanya waved him off, saying, “I’ve heard the first time you try drugs is supposed to be fun, so I think I’ll wait. If I’m breaking the law, I don’t want it to be locked in a tomb in the middle of the night.” Her eyes held the same hint of laughter her tone did. 

 

“Fair enough,” Klaus giggled. “Feels good, though. Worth Daddy Dearest’s piss-poor mood when he walks into a hotboxed cage.” He leaned his head against Five’s shoulder briefly, before rearranging himself and nearly throwing his legs in Five’s lap before a warning look stopped him. 

 

Five pointed up towards the center of the ceiling, where a grated cover rested. “I’ll air it out before he comes back. Easiest way to avoid getting caught is covering your tracks, Number Four,” he chastised with a grin. 

 

Klaus stretched his leg enough to give Five a kick to the thigh, thrusting the joint in his direction even as he turned his face away with mock annoyance. 

 

“You shouldn’t have invited your boyfriend to this sleepover, Vanya. He is sorely lacking in manners.” 

 

Vanya stuttered out a terribly guilty, “My-my what?” at the same time Five choked on the smoke in his lungs and promptly began coughing them up. Four never missed a beat, nonchalantly extracting the joint from Five and rolling his eyes. 

 

“Please,” he said, exhaling his hit through his nose and waving his hand at them, “don’t mind me being in on the secret. Five probably couldn’t help his big, dumb heart eyes any more than our big, dumb brother can help his.” He brought the joint back to his lips, smiling. “And you two are totally adorable, by the way. Five looked like he wanted to rip off the arm I’ve got around you for a while, there.” 

 

He leaned in close to Five and stage whispered, “And if the way she looked at you earlier is any indication, you’re a very lucky man.” 

 

Five’s hand shot out and smacked Klaus in the back of the head before Vanya’s blush had fully overtaken her face. Of course, Four wasn’t discouraged in the least and merely giggled, winking at them both. “My lips are sealed, brother, there’s no worries,” he assured. 

 

They settled into an uneasy silence while Klaus smoked himself into serenity. His eyes no longer looked around for things they couldn’t see; the tension of anticipated horrors had melted from his body. Five remembered feeling scorn at the way Four shied from his powers, years ago, but watching Ben quietly panic on the way to mission after mission, knowing they relied on his ability to take down half a dozen opponents at a time, had erased that. The more he saw Ben withdraw from everyone and everything, the more he understood Klaus trying so hard to avoid becoming his own version of that personal corrosion. 

 

“So, do you think this means I’m destined to end up boning Diego, Benny, or both?” 

 

Vanya groaned and buried her face in her knees, drawn to her chest and encircled by her arms. “I don’t think sleepovers are for me,” came her muffled lament. 

 

 *****  

 

Out of all six of the Academy members, Klaus seemed to be in the best mood the following morning. Five only vaguely understood, because while Four did spent the night trapped in a mausoleum with exactly fifteen dead children (Five had counted the tombs, then realized they were all rather small, and then saw the dates on each on, wondered the whole time, _What the fuck is wrong with our father, trapping him with dead children?_ ), he also spent it stoned and sleepily smushed between Five and Seven.  He assured the both of them that it was most definitely a fantastic upgrade from his usual night in the mausoleum. It was the other Hargreeves children, all in dark moods with either carefully blank or plainly annoyed expressions, he didn’t understand. 

 

After two hours of classes and some careful observation, Five surmised that Allison and Luther were fighting again, which resulted in their poor moods. The circles under Ben’s eyes were darker than both Five and Four’s. He only spoke up in their lessons once or twice, rather than his usual incessant need for dissecting a topic rearing its head. When he did speak, it was subdued. As a contrast, Diego stomped down the stairs, to their lessons, and then to training with the same level of flamboyant anger in every step. 

 

No one seemed to know why he was angry and not even Mom’s soft smile and almost-anxiously fluttering hands seemed to sooth him. Diego flatly ignored their morning lessons; Pogo knew this mood, the fire burning too brightly behind his eyes, and did not attempt to engage him during the lecture or bother him during the classwork. The quiet displeasure he skated through breakfast and lessons with finally exploded in their training session, when he threw his weights to the matted floor and stalked away from his assigned area. 

 

“Number Two! Where do you think you’re going?” Reginald demanded, hands clasped behind his back and a stern frown drawing his lips downward. “Weightlifting still has twenty minutes left, before you are to move on to endurance running. Return to your station this instant.” 

 

The other children stopped, well aware there was going to be a scene. Diego had been on edge all morning and no one set him off like Father. 

 

“W-what’s the point? What good is this training doing me?” 

 

“There are numerous benefits to weight training that we have gone over countless times in-” 

 

“Maybe if you happen to have super-strength as a power.” 

 

“Return to your station, Number Two.” 

 

Diego scowled, defiance evident in every inch of expression. “No. If I have to train, I’d rather be doing something useful.” 

 

Reginald regarded Two with a cool stare for a steely moment. “If you insist.” He raised his hand and pointed at a spot along the wall. “Go stand over there.” Then, he moved towards the racks of equipment along the opposite wall and spent some time considering the options. Diego finally picked up his feet when their father plucked a sleeve of throwing knives from the rack. 

 

With a self-satisfied smirk, he loped to the spot Reginald pointed at and waited for their father to approach him. 

 

However, Hargreeves had other plans. 

 

He stood ten feet or so back, the roll of knives unfurled over one arm while he ran his fingers over the different blades tucked into their respective sleeves. Reginald’s fingers hovered over one in particular before withdrawing it. He did not roll the sleeve back up. 

 

“You are to stand with your back to the wall, feet shoulder-width apart.” Diego did so, though not without a questioning expression. “There is only so much you can learn, controlling the trajectory of the objects you throw. And so today, you’ll work towards controlling the trajectory of the objects someone else throws. Bullets, shrapnel, broken furniture, any sort of obstacle could come flying towards you during a confrontation. Offense is not enough; you need a strong defense as well.” 

 

There was a precarious silence hovering in the room. Reginald’s words made sense, but Five had never heard of Diego curving projectiles coming at him. Surely, knives weren’t the first thing he should use to test that power. Five tried to catch Diego’s eye, read what he was thinking, but all he could see on his brother’s face was stubborn fury. He watched carefully. There’s no way Diego would agree to this. _Surely_ , he wasn’t that stupid. Surely, their father wasn’t that malicious. 

 

But he recognized the panicked, doubtful thoughts for what they were. He knew exactly where this encounter was going. 

 

He geared himself up to jump as much as he could without the spatial energy crackling at his fingertips. The racing energy in his veins was familiar, comforting, when he wasn’t sure what to do. 

 

Diego put his back to the wall. He wasn’t shaking, did not look frightened, though the smugness in his expression was long gone. Reginald did not hesitate, drawing his arm back and whipping the knife through the air in one fluid motion. End over end it spiraled until the tip embedded itself in the wall an inch from Diego’s arm. Every one of the Umbrella Academy members flinched when it impacted. 

 

“Focus, Number Two. Were my aim to waver, you would be hit. Try again.” 

 

There was no time wasted picking and choosing between blades. Reginald grabbed another, the sound of the knife slipping out of its sleeve as deafening in the silence as the knife hitting the wall had been. The second blade was embedded in the wall, even closer to Diego’s thigh than the one next to his arm. He didn’t flinch at that, hardly even blinked, only narrowed his eyes further and looked at the sleeve of knives like they were both a forest fire and an oasis. This wasn’t his normal training; it wasn’t something he could attack, and he was holding off from panicking, just like his spectating siblings. Five, Ben, and Klaus all jumped at the third throw; with the fourth, and the subsequent cut in the track pants Diego wore, Five took a half-step forward. He looked around at his brothers and sister for a similar reaction. Allison’s face was empty of the earlier worry he’d seen, now arranged in a smooth, unfeeling mask he recognized as the one she wore at Reginald’s side. Luther’s brow was furrowed, but no one else was moving. A protest was on Five’s lips, but the next blade was faster. 

 

One second, Diego’s face was screwed up in absolute concentration, his eyes fixated on the knife. The next, it was half-drenched in blood and painted with shock. 

 

Five was at his side before he registered jumping, pulling Diego several feet to the side and out of the makeshift target range they’d created. He smacked Diego’s hands out of the way, examining the long gash that extended from under his cheek bone to above his ear on the temple. Blood was rushing from the wound steadily, as expected from a head wound, and Diego was babbling in anger and indignation and pain. 

 

Luther, the closest, reached them first and Five snapped at him to grab a towel. With both One and Five having broken rank, the other Hargreeves rushed to check on Diego. Ben stared at their father the entire time he ran to them, a mix of fear and disturbance on his face. Five imagined his face looked much the same, when he turned to look at Reginald in the short seconds before Luther returned with a clean gym towel. 

 

Reginald was staring right back, the smallest wrinkle between his eyebrows as he considered Number Five. There was something in his expression that chilled Five more than the way he brushed off his son’s injury, something curious and disapproving. 

 

But then Luther was pressing the towel into his hands so that he could apply pressure to Diego’s wound and Five’s attention was taken up by how quickly the towel changed from white to red. He motioned for his siblings to back up, give him enough space to jump. It looked like the gash would need stitches and Mom should be in the library with Vanya at the moment. He wrapped one of his arms around Diego and told him to keep his hands pressed down on the towel. Spatial energy crackled at his fingertips once again. He met Reginald’s disapproving glare with open defiance, just like Diego. 

 

He jumped them to the infirmary and left Diego on the examination table, anxious to collect Mom to treat her patient. 

 

“Fucking asshole,” Diego spat. “I’m bleeding like a stuck pig.”

 

Five was nearly vibrating with his own fury. He couldn’t answer. He rummaged through the cabinets instead found a box and ripped open one of the packages it held. He then took the bloodied towel from Diego and replaced it with a thick gauze pad he’d hunted down. “I’ll be right back, Diego.” 

 

He felt the look of bewilderment his brother gave him mirrored on his own face, at the way his voice shook. Five took a step back and disappeared. 

 

Neither Mom nor Vanya jumped at the sound of his arrival, but they both started at the blood on his hands. Vanya dropped her textbook at the sight and gasped. Mom was out of her chair in an instant with his hands in her own, turning them over and then looking even more alarmed at the lack of a wound. Vanya hovered at his side. He felt one of her hands slide along his forearm as well as her alarm. Her touch was the first comfort he’d had since seeing his father throwing knives at his brother and something in him sighed in relief at the familiar warmth. Five gave her a short, reassuring glance, before addressing Mom. 

 

“Diego was injured during training,” he wasn’t sure if Mom tensed at his strained voice or Diego’s name, “and I think he needs stitches. It’s a head wound, clean, made by a knife.” 

 

Mom held out her hand, obviously asking him for the expedience his powers could offer, and he took it. It was the first time he’d ever seen Mom’s hands shake. Vanya’s hand slipped away from his arm and she stepped back a few paces. He felt a spike of fear and could not identify who it came from. 


	18. We'll, I've been holding on tonight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Five, following an argument with his father, spends a few weeks focused on work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for Reginald Hargreeves being an awful parent. There's a lot of Fiveya here, but it's okay if y'all still yell at me in the comments.
> 
> Chapter title from My Chemical Romance.

He should have expected Pogo coming downstairs to the infirmary to fetch him. Reginald Hargreeves did not let disobedience slide, after all. 

 

Pogo’s soft knock on the door frame went unnoticed – Mom was carefully sanitizing a needle to start stitching Diego up, while Five was checking the gash for any lingering towel fuzz or other possible debris. Of course, Diego made this task, like so many others, much more difficult than it needed to be. 

 

On the third attempt at swatting Five’s hands and the tweezers away from his face, Five smacked back. He tried not to laugh as Diego stared at his stinging hand like a toddler who’d been forced to put the lid back on the cookie jar. “Now, be a good boy and sit still like Mom said.” 

 

“Be a good boy and go fu-” 

 

“Number Five,” Pogo called from the doorway, interrupting Diego. “Your father has requested your presence. He’s in his office.” 

 

Diego clammed up, lips pursed angrily as he tried to burn holes into the floor with the intensity of his glare. Five sighed and set the tweezers down on the tray next to the examination table. He already felt a headache coming on at the thought of listening to his father berate him for jumping to his injured bother’s aide. He looked to Mom, standing a few feet away, staring back at him with a tightness around her wide, blue eyes that he was beginning to recognize. She offered him a hint of a smile, reaching nowhere near those eyes. He nodded in response and moved to start towards the door when Diego clamped a hand around his upper arm. Five glanced at him in surprise, but Two still glared down at the floor. His fingers tightened as he took a deep breath. Five could feel Pogo and Mom watching them closely, just as unsure as he was of where this confrontation was going to end. 

 

“Wait. I’ll go with you. Will it t-take too long to stitch th-this up, Mom?” 

 

“That won’t be necess-” 

 

“The fuck it won’t, Pogo,” Diego snapped. “Five’s going to be punished for helping me!” 

 

“Language, Diego,” Mom chided before he could collect his thoughts into a more coherent stream of anger. “It won’t take but a minute if you’d like to follow after Five. I’m sure your father will want to discuss what happened today with your training.” 

 

Folding under Mom’s approach and reproachful tone, Diego stared sullenly at Pogo in the doorway and released his hold on Five’s arm. He stepped back, still looking curiously to his brother, noting the clench of his jaw and the anger all but radiating off of him. Five could practically hear him grinding his teeth over Mom’s tinkering around while she readied herself to stitch him up. Pogo stood in the doorway, patient even though they both knew Hargreeves would not be. Damn, trying to be close with his siblings was an inconvenience. 

 

“I’ll take the stairs, so hurry up.” 

 

Two blinked at him in surprise, which was fair considering Five had to shrug off the reflexive dismissals he wanted to give his brother before speaking. Diego nodded once at him, lips upturned and the corners as his jaw unclenched just enough to let him scoff a little. Then, his full attention was on Mom. He sat up straight, ready for his stitches, a lighter look in his eyes. 

 

Mom smiled down at Diego with so much affection it twisted the tiny, aching part of Five that recognized parental neglect for what it was, the part of him that wondered about his mother in Germany with her hands deep in an engine and his father at home an hour before her, grading papers and letting his afternoon coffee grow cold. He realized, some time ago, that it would have been much worse on them if it not for the Mom he knew today. Her duties ranged from patching them up to keeping their secrets, cooking their meals and making sure they actually ate said meals. She stayed at home, pleasantly distracted by her dusting, baking, humming and practicing her needlepoint, while her children risked life and limb on her creator’s whim. And though Reginald created her to be the perfect mother and caretaker, it seemed to have bitten him in the ass. She got away with small disobediences and secrets with the intent of protecting the children she was made to raise. More than Vanya alone, who inspired the need of a permanent and extraordinary caretaker. Mom tried to care for all of them. 

 

Five could see the anxious tightening around her affectionate smile, as well as the way her fingers skirted ever so gently along the skin she would have to stitch together. He imagined how difficult it must be for her to stay silent on the matter. 

 

He had more liberties, and other plans. 

 

“Shall we?” he asked Pogo, smirking with arrogance he no longer felt, but after all these years he found it too easy to draw inspiration from anger. 

 

They began their trek to Reginald’s office, four floors up. Neither of them considered starting a conversation. More than enough would be said when they reached their destination after all. The clicking of Pogo’s walking stick filled the silence comfortably, anyhow. The walk lasted too long for Five’s taste, knowing he could have gotten this over with much sooner if only he had jumped to his destination before the great wooden doors of his father’s office. 

 

Pogo stepped forward and opened the doors before he could stride through them unceremoniously, which perhaps put them off to a better start. 

 

Five had no intentions of that lasting. 

 

Reginald knew this, it seemed, for he did not bother sitting behind his desk and posturing with his paperwork. He instead stood behind his desk chair, back ramrod straight as he looked down his nose at Five, though his father no longer towered over any of his sons. His knuckles were tense over the back of his chair. “Number Five.” 

 

That grave voice no longer chilled him as it once did, in his childhood, nor did the soft click of the doors as Pogo politely closed them make him shift nervously. He moved past deference, reluctance, and walking on egg shells, long ago. Anger drove him, now. It crawled under his skin and reverberated in his bones, amplified by the electric shock of fear at his father’s earlier cruelty. He wondered how long Diego would wear the scar from today’s training session. 

 

Something caught his eye as he strode across the room. His father’s desk was empty, oddly enough, of any paperwork or contracts. Five stared at it for a long moment, standing before the uncomfortable armchairs before the desk, as he waited for his father to speak again. He drew deep, even breaths and stood so straight his shoulders ached. This argument was a long time coming; the fall out concerned him far more. 

 

“You did not have permission to leave your station during training this morning, let alone the gymnasium.” 

 

Voice and eyes holding the same sharpness, Five said, “I took my teammate and brother to seek medical attention, considering he took a knife wound to the head.” 

 

“Yes, I am well aware that Number Two left without permission as well – no need for the reminder. Pogo, I trust you informed him we will speak as well.” 

 

“He insisted he would join the discussion the moment his stitches were finished, sir,” Pogo said from beside the door. He stood with both hands on his cane, eyes drawn to the argument and the doorway in equal measure. 

 

Reginald scowled. “He will wait.” 

 

“As you say,” he demurred, locking the door. 

 

Five wondered, were he to be without his own special means of escape, if he would have felt fear at that action. How much was that to keep Diego out, and Five from running? But, no – his father knew as well as he did how easily Five could leave. 

 

He could leave. And how often he dreamed of it. 

 

There were too many complications for that. 

 

“Diego should be here for this conversation.”   
 

“This is about your actions, Number Five, not Number Two’s.” 

 

Five scoffed, rolling his eyes. “Do you really think we should be questioning _my_ actions? I upheld everything you’ve taught us at the Academy: protect my teammates, jump them to safety if they cannot be protected well enough, seek medical attention with as much discretion as possible.” 

 

“You interrupted the training of one of your teammates, before absconding with that teammate in the middle of a designated exercise block. You were not removing Number Two from a dangerous situation on a mission.” 

 

“No, I was just removing him from a dangerous situation with his father.” 

 

“Number Two was in no greater danger than he felt he could handle, as you could see by his compliance.” Reginald regarded him coldly, an icy look that reached from head to toe. “Perhaps you could stand to learn something from him.” 

 

“It appears I’m more of a gunfight kind of guy, actually.” And if the way Pogo glanced at Reginald and stiffened spoke of anything, the glint in his father’s eye did say Reginald Hargreeves was more than capable of arranging an appropriate stage for such a thing. “Does it not matter to you that our lives are at risk? Is your pride that wounded, your anger so great?” 

 

“Your lives,” he hissed, “are centered around the Academy, around the mastering of your abilities and the good you can achieve as a team that functions well.” 

 

“And if one of our lives were to end, in the process of _mastering our abilities_  or _doing good_ for the Academy?” 

 

The stern expression on his face did not waver once. “I would have expected more, and instead of the Academy being let down by one of its own members.” 

 

Five caught the beginning of Pogo’s sharp intake of breath before it was buried under a hard knock on the door, and then Five’s own tirade. “You are a ruthless fool to care so little for the children you adopted. If you sincerely do not have a shred of a heart under your stiff suits and cold demeanor, if nothing else, you should care about the fame and money you’ve bled from forming the Academy.” 

 

“What use do I have for money?” He put his hands behind his back, frown turning even more strict. “I have told you to obey me and that is all. You should not need further instruction, Number Five.” 

 

The knocking was louder and fiercer. Pogo stood even stiffer than before and kept his eyes trained firmly on the window across the room. Five felt his blood boiling, tried breathing even deeper to calm himself down. He could not risk Vanya’s powers acting up. A bit more collected, he stated, “I will not obey orders that allow my teammates to come to harm.” 

 

“You will do as I say,” his father said, voice rising loudly over the knocking. 

 

“I will do what I have to in order to protect my family.” He did not raise his voice in turn. Reginald stood a few feet away, more than close enough to hear him. The doors were solid, thick wood, and Diego was no Luther. 

 

“Number Five, your lack of disregard for correcting your poor behavior will not go unpunished. I command you to listen-” 

 

“There is nothing to correct,” he bit out, hands clenched into fists and crackling blue. 

 

His father tried to interrupt, demanding he not leave this office and properly stay to grovel, but Five refused. “There is nothing to correct. If you are a danger to Diego, or any of my family again, I will not hesitate to disobey. You have urged me for years,” he said, all hard emphasis and sparking fists, “to care more for my fellow Academy members. Looks like I finally listened.” 

 

 *****  

 

He drew the dark blue energy into his fingertips, reassured by the crackling of his sphere attempting to form. The sparks were less patient than he was, waiting with his eyes trained on Diego lazing on the couch at the other end of the rug. He scribbled furiously in short bursts and lazily lobbed crumpled paper balls at Five randomly. The study session dissolved quickly when Five decided to take a shot at training. Diego never said what it was he kept failing to express correctly on paper; he never asked. 

 

Three sentences, this time, before Diego gave up. He tossed the ball towards Five, curving it to the left as if to make it go around him. The sparks at his fingers danced and melded, forming a deep blue sphere six inches in diameter. Eyes on the ball, he flicked his hands towards the paper wad and the sphere leapt, appearing around his target. The paper ball froze, stuck in the air. Two grunted from the couch, eyes narrowing at what he was writing before they darted to his projectile. Five smirked and focused on his control of the sphere. 

 

“You gotta drop it sometime, Five,” Diego taunted. 

 

“Yeah, because three days ago when you got a nosebleed after twenty minutes of trying to move your frozen spitball proved nothing.” 

 

Scowling, Two muttered, “Just means you’ve been practicing.” He dropped the energy behind his throw, however, not willing to risk another. 

 

“Considering training is one of my three approved activities, I have plenty of time.” 

 

“Obviously can’t be off on missions all the time, and I figure you’ve finished all your homework and read half the library by now. Training does seem to be your best bet.” He scrubbed hard at his page with his eraser, brushing the dust away and looking as if he wished his stare alone could destroy the paper. “But it’s been three weeks, now. You’ve snuck out once or twice, right?” 

 

“A gentleman never tells,” Five quipped. 

 

“Even if you haven’t, you could, right?” Two was nearly out of room now, only three or four lines from the bottom of the page. 

 

“Are you asking me to sneak out, Diego?” 

 

He folded the paper, scribbled something across the front and the flipped it over to writing something shorter along the back. “I need a favor. It’s been three weeks since Dad put us on lock down and I can’t get out of the house on my own.” 

 

Five considered Two and the letter he now held up to show his brother. He couldn’t recall anyone named _Eudora_ , though he also couldn’t say where it was Diego went when he left the house or who he spent his time with. A memory of a girl at the donut shop came to mind. Did he and his soulmate communicate through some informal letters? He did not feel comfortable at the thought of shoving this in some mailbox in a nice suburban house, even any bystander would never see more than a flash of him there, if anything at all. 

 

“You want me to play a delivery boy?” 

 

Klaus snored loudly from the other end of the couch Five sat on, startling the both of them. Sighing, Diego stood and walked to stand before Five. He thrust the letter into his brother’s hands and spoke in a low, controlled tone, “I just need you to jump to the address on the back and put this in locker number twenty-two. The code for the lock is 01-04-19. If there are any letters like this addressed to me, bring them back. Please.” 

 

He nodded. Diego sighed in relief as Five slipped the letter into his vest. He started to leave, but stopped, turning to Four to reassure he was asleep. Then he looked back at Five sternly. “And d-don't go reading them.” 

 

“Of course not. I’ll go before breakfast in the morning.” 

 

 *****  

 

The letter sat on his desk that night, hidden under an artful scatter of paper that Mom would not reach before he’d remove it in the morning. He recognized neither the address nor the name of the person it was addressed to, but he couldn’t imagine Diego asking if he did not trust Five to be able to deliver it. 

 

Five placed the letter there after dinner and tried to forget about it for the night. He had another hundred or so pages left in his assigned reading, and another four days to finish the novel, but that didn’t matter. The rest of the Hargreeves children would be awake for at least an hour, reading the same book or perhaps fearing their father would drag them off for a night locked in the crypt. Five slept in his room exclusively since the first trip to the cemetery a few weeks ago. Both Reginald and Pogo had been watching him carefully, restricting him to the house save for missions and keeping him strictly on the schedule his father laid for his training and education. Gone was his designated half hour of free time on Sundays, along with his ability to play mildly educational but mostly mindless board games with his siblings in the evenings. 

 

He had even limited his time with Vanya to very strict parameters in these long three weeks. His Wednesday escapes, under the cover of extra-long showers after intense training sessions, would be spent with Vanya in her music room until the extra surveillance calmed down. Much to their mutual displeasure, he refused to spend a night in her room (to which she allowed he had a good excuse, in watching out for Klaus) or allow her to spend most of her nights in his. 

 

Too easily, he grew weak and gave in. Twice a week was starting to be the pattern, which was much more discreet than the usual five-to-six.  

 

Tonight, he’d given in. Vanya cornered him on his way out of the library after his history lesson and demanded he retrieve her when the coast was clear. He smirked at the memory of her yanking him into a room full of covered furniture down the hall from his lesson, shoving a finger in his chest, and whispering harshly at him. Her annoyance made him feel guilty. That feeling only intensified when she said she needed to speak with him, had for a few days if he wasn’t ignoring her. 

 

“I’m sorry, Vanya, I swear. But I refuse to put you at risk by letting the wrong person catch us together.” 

 

She wilted into his chest, when he said that, the accusing finger becoming a clinging hand all too quickly. “I know.” 

 

A deep sorrow pooled through their soulbond. He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her forehead, holding her until the waters receded. They parted with a promise of later and dragging feet. 

 

He wasted the last bit of time waiting with his reading, only managing to lose himself in the novel for five or ten minutes at a time. The hour felt dicey, skittering from short interval to shorter interval. It was twelve minutes before he normally judged appropriate that he gave in and jumped to Seven’s room. 

 

Pogo called for lights out over twenty minutes ago, so the room was lit only by a skinny floor lamp they had smuggled from the library with the fireplace Seven loved so much. Her room was neat, only a wobbly stack of books and shuffled compositions on her dresser showing any disorganization. 

 

She sat at her desk, with her brush and a little gold ribbon laid out before her. Her long, silky hair lay over the back of her desk chair in a chestnut waterfall. He moved towards her without thinking and tangled his hands in her hair. Leaning her head back into his touch, she allowed Five to see the grin stretching across her lips. He left one hand laced through her hair and moved the other to her shoulder, pressing a kiss to her cheek, and another to her jaw, then just under her chin. Seven’s giggling stopped him from continuing on his path, froze his lips just a few inches from her throat. 

 

“How would you like me to braid your hair tonight, darling?” 

 

“However you’d like,” she said, even enough to earn his respect after the way she’d shivered when he breathed his question along her skin. 

 

The rare allowance pleased him; the intimacy in both braiding her how and choosing the style warmed Five straight to his bones. He pressed a lingering kiss to her throat before straightening up. He grabbed the brush and the ribbon, admiring the color. The urge to kiss her again washed over him and Vanya resumed her laughter. 

 

“It’s after lights out, Vanya. You shouldn’t draw anymore attention to your room.” 

 

She half-turned in her seat and pulled him down by the collar of his pajama top, her kiss smothering any laughter. Too soon, she twisted around and the curtain of her hair swung before him in a clear sign of instruction. “How are you braiding my hair tonight, dear?” 

 

“A single Dutch, I’ve decided, beginning at the crown of your head and a little loose.” 

 

“Yes, I would hate for you to have any difficulties loosening it yourself.” 

 

He tugged a bit harder on the piece of hair he was gathering, clicking his tongue at her in disapproval. “Do not make insinuations on my behavior. I am doing you a favor by styling your hair, after all.” 

 

“Says the guy who will take my braid down just to redo it,” she mutters. 

 

Five _hmm_ ’d, half preoccupied with twisting her hair in place. “I have an... appreciation for your hair. It’s very soft.” 

 

“Thank you, Five.” 

 

He finished her braid, tying it off with the gold ribbon in a tiny bow. Stepping back, he admired the way she ran her hand along the plait of her hair and threw him a smile over her shoulder. Her soulmark peeked out from under her hair when she twisted her head to one side and it thrilled his heart. Still, he made sure to point it out before they left the room. 

 

“Well,” she mused as she slid a hand into his and stood by his side for the jump, “I guess you’ll have to undo it before you bring me back.” 

 

Five grinned and reached around her to snap the lamp off. They were plunged into darkness for just a moment, her hand tightening reflexively around his just as his did the same, and then they were in his bedroom, flooded with moonlight from his windows and tied back curtains. 

 

Seven tugged herself out of his hold and turned on his bedside lamp, beckoning him to her side. He complied immediately. Vanya tugged off the thick robe she wore, a pair of dark green pajamas underneath. They were his favorite pair of her pajamas, both soft and flattering. She sat down on the side of his bed and he followed. One of his hands trailed along her back, smoothing a pattern up and down and enjoying the cool silk covering her warm skin. She leaned into his touch and smiled. 

 

He felt the waters of that familiar sorrow creeping back in, but Vanya distracted him by pulling her robe into her lap and fishing a pamphlet from the pocket. 

 

She clenched it in her hands, folded in three parts too skinny to get an idea of the contents. He saw trees and people. That meant little in the realm of pamphlet topics, he knew. Five waited for her to speak. His hand slowed but did not stop. 

 

“Mom took me to the library, today during your mission. She wanted to find a few new cross stitch pattern books and I said it could be helpful to my philosophy paper to explore sources outside the Academy. Outside, there was a table of students handing out pamphlets.” 

 

She shuffled closer and Five slid his hand over her shoulders and drew Seven to his side. There was an ocean between them, even as she sat close enough for Five to feel her heartbeat. Her hands relaxed and she smoothed the paper over her lap. 

 

 _A school_. 

 

And the first thing that he felt was horror, cold and sharp, but her hands pressing the pamphlet advertising a boarding school focusing on the arts against his thigh were insistent. His horror rippled across the water, the sorrow receding enough to allow him to see the honesty in her distressed and apologetic pleas to listen. 

 

He could not deny her, had no intention of ignoring her attempt at reasoning as he’d done with Reginald. Seven was smart. Seven loved him. She had no desire to dash off and leave him without good reason. He trusted that much of her, though that did not halt his initial panic. 

 

 _A school_ , he thought again. _Why is she looking at boarding schools?_  

 

“I did not go looking for them, but when the idea was dropped in my lap, it made sense.” 

 

Fuck, he did not want to make sense of this. He studied the page introducing the school, a modern building with plenty of shining glass and a full green lawn with attractive young adults sprinkled around the scenery advertising the usual showy idea of a school paradise. The name was unfamiliar. The town that it was nestled along the edge of was to the south, he thought. He opened the pamphlet. 

 

“Father is watching you so closely that we hardly have any time together. You’ve gotten irritable; I know you aren’t sleeping well. Any time we do carve out for ourselves, you spend it anxious and afraid we’ll be caught. It may not dominate your mood, but I can always feel it, Five. I know you.” She snaked her hand along his arm to reach his chest, pressing her palm to his heart. “What I don’t know is how long you can keep worrying like this. 

 

“You spend so much of your time with Diego and Klaus, or Luther sometimes. You’ve been working so hard on controlling your powers that you’ve lost weight again. I lose sleep worrying for you, Five. As long as I’m here with you, you’ll be torn between protecting our soulbond and protecting our family. This school is a chance for me to go away, Father-approved, and be safe.” 

 

His protest died in his throat when she pulled him even closer to her and rushed to defend her choice. 

 

“It’s only a little over an hour away, which is easy enough for you to jump twice on a slow day. Father will demand I have a private room because Mom will make the suggestion to him when I ask to go away. He’ll be so thrilled to get rid of me,” and Five growled at the thought of anyone rejoicing her departure, “it won’t matter. I can focus on music, which he should approve of. The schedules aren’t too tight. There’s a student curfew and also a faculty curfew a little later. Key cards are required to enter any of the dorm rooms or classroom buildings.” 

 

“Not for me,” he muttered. She laughed, watery and quiet. “You will be safe.” 

 

Vanya nodded, laying her head against his chest where her hand had been earlier. Five leaned against the headboard, half dragging her with him, and closed his eyes. 

 

“We will have a standing meeting time each week, so long as nothing comes up.” 

 

“Your Wednesday evening escapes.” 

 

“Good choice,” he agreed. “I’ll visit as much as possible, otherwise.” 

 

“This won’t come between us, Five.” 

 

The conviction she conveyed calmed him. He had no plans of letting anything come between them, a taunting question in an alleyway be damned. Clearing his throat, he asked, “Did you think about those people who want to separate us? This could placate them, if they learned about it. If we appeared to be separated.” 

 

Vanya exhaled hard through her nose, nostrils no doubt flaring in dissatisfaction. “I did. I don’t want to go back to being so...secret.” 

 

“It was nice, being open around Klaus and Luther at times.” 

 

“And Allison,” Seven chided. 

 

“When will you ask to leave?” 

 

“The new semester stars a week after the new year.” 

 

It was Five’s turn to exhale sharply. He didn’t like the thought of her leaving at all, let alone so soon. They had two and a half weeks. It was too soon, not long enough for him to adjust to the idea of Vanya leaving. 

 

“Five,” she said firmly, “even a thousand miles away we are connected.” She lifted her head from his chest, eyes focused on his lips and Five burned underneath her stare. “Nothing is tearing us apart.” 

 

He moved his hand from her shoulder to the back of her neck, hand half threaded through the hair at the base of her neck and half covering her soulmark. She whined under the pressure of his first kiss and wrapped her own hand in his hair with the ardor of the second. It took her two more to decide she was at too much big of a disadvantage, impatiently crawling into his lap and drawing her lips to Five’s at her own pace. 

 

An electric thrill replaced the sorrow, zapping them in equal turns. It only grew with the drag of Vanya’s teeth along his lip and the way he gripped her hips to drag her even closer. Her kisses were less impatient than his own, all soft lips, searching tongues, and reluctant partings. Seven moaned when he tugged lightly at her hair, sighed when he kissed the petal soft skin beneath her jawline. He chuckled, self-satisfied when he noticed the boarding school’s advertisement had fluttered to the floor and Seven was far too busy panting against his mouth to have spotted it. 

 

He had never parted from her for any period of time, but saying farewell seemed to have its perks. 

 

They eventually pulled away from one another, though he was just as averse to the decision as she seemed to be. He slept, dreamless, at Seven’s side and woke with the same hope that he fell asleep with. 

 

 _Distance will not change things between us; distance will be good for us in the long run._  


	19. Ain't this uniform so flattering?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Introducing Eudora Patch, alley-creeper and writer of love letters! A break-through in Five's work! Affection abound! Also, some resentment towards the Academy, kindness on the down-low, and efforts to better oneself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a work of fiction and I do not condone Five's blatant and careless waste of water. Sorry this took so long, y'all. Please let me know what you think!
> 
> Chapter title from Green Day.

Reggie’s Gym was as polished on the inside as it was the out, the gleaming windows and brightly lit sign above the entrance welcoming Five into a large, open space dominated by a boxing ring. He was surprised to find it open before the night's chill had faded and the sun had properly risen, even more surprised to see a few people stretching out on the yoga mats or warming up with weights. Luckily, his navy Academy tracksuit blended in well enough. He slipped past a trio of women jogging in place and scanned the half-wall of lockers for the right one. 

 

Locker twenty-two, Five remembered. 

 

He glanced around the locker area cautiously, sharp green eyes looking for anyone that could be watching him. In addition to being on a strange errand in unfamiliar territory, he was also all too aware that the pair of strangers he had seen outside the donut shop would be looking for the any of Hargreeves children. While he doubted either of those two were hanging around a boxing gym at five in the morning, covering all of his bases made him feel better. With nothing visibly out of place, he was able to marginally relax, still eager to get this over with. Five flicked the lock this way and that, spinning out the combination, before he jerked the lock down and heard the satisfying click of the mechanism unlocking. He pulled the lock’s neck out of the metal loop on the door and opened the locker. 

 

It was as crammed and messy as Diego’s room in the scant hours before Mom tidied up. There was a bar running from one side to the other near the top, two pairs of boxing gloves in two different sizes looped over and tangled together. Half-unraveled rolls of hand wrap, a few mouth guards, one silver water thermos with a complicated lid, and a jump rope were jumbled on the double layers on the bottom. The shelf separating the layers was covered in Sharpie signatures and stickers from _Diego_ and the girl the letter was addressed to, _Eudora_. They seemed to be close. Their lives were entwined here, in this messy locker at a downtown boxing ring, at least. Then there was their communication, tucked in a magnetic basket on the inside and hidden behind the boxing gloves. 

 

The little black basket had a handful of envelopes that Five traded for the folded note Diego had given him. All seven of the letters in the basket were addressed to Diego, the ones at the front written in much less careful script that those at the back. 

 

How often did Diego come here, that Eudora began to worry enough for seven letters in two weeks? 

 

How much did she love him, to worry so much? 

 

Five replaced the lock and clicked it back into place before spinning the number dial. He tucked the letters in his jacket, the paper crinkling as it settled in the breast pocket. With one last casual sweep of the room to ensure he would not be followed or monitored, he made his way to the exit. The streets in this part of town were empty in comparison to the gym and he welcomed the silence of the early morning. He made it three steps down the quiet sidewalk before some accosted him from an alley between the gym and the art store next door. 

 

As soon as the hand wrapped around Five’s forearm he was spinning around, the tug his assailant gave to force him into the action now useless and only caused to upset their balance. One hand raised in a fist, the other pulling from their grip, Five watched as a girl with angry, dark eyes and an over-sized bomber jacket stumbled and ended up with her back to the brick wall of the gym.  

 

It took a moment for the adrenaline in his system to allow him to see that there was no real threat, no Hazel or Hazel’s partner pulling him into an alley so that they could spirit him away forever. His chest was on fire even as he stared down at this stupid girl before him. When he could take a proper breath, finally feeling collected, he surveyed the area. The alley and street were deserted save for him and this abrasive stranger and Five was half-tempted to punch her, anyway, on principal and for the scare she gave him. 

 

He tried not to make a habit of assaulting pedestrians and, more importantly, he feared drawing unnecessary attention when he was already aware of the small faction of the population that insisted the Academy was nothing but a child army raised to be as ruthless as possible in handling criminals big and small. True, most of their assignments were dealing with small, organized criminals or local emergencies with crimes committed by everyday people. There was the occasional drug lord or dog fighting ring leader to bust, along with a memorable few other super-powered kids exactly their age who wandered this way to see for themselves the team of superheroes raised by an eccentric billionaire. But the Academy could _literally_ be hired; they _were_ raised, by a cold and callous man, with dubious morality at best when wielding their powers. While the general public liked looking at these _diverse_ , _heroic_ , e _xtraordinary_ children and praising them for the supposed good they do, Five knew there were people out there keeping a body count, adding up all the damages Hargreeves paid for, watching exactly who the mysterious man cared to schmooze and who he snubbed. 

 

The Academy logo was on his chest. He had a reputation to uphold. He did not need to draw attention to himself. And no shrimpy, pissed off, teenage girl was going to cause him to forget any of that. Not when he had tightropes to walk and trackers to dodge. 

 

Five pressed in towards her, arms boxing her against the bricks as he glared down at her. Unsure of her identity or anything, really, he kept his hands to himself and tried intimidating her; violence was a last resort. The girl had her hair pulled back tightly, ponytail bobbing as she shuffled against the wall with a deepening scowl. Standing a foot shorter than him and swallowed up by her jacket, she didn’t look to be much of a threat at first glance. But her balled fists with wrapped knuckles and high-topped sneakers adorned with more scuffs than color spoke volumes of her association with this place. He looked at her face again – heart shaped, with thick, arching eyebrows over dark eyes and a button nose, bottom lip noticeably fuller than the top – and recognized her as Diego’s companion on their Griddy’s outing. 

 

“Hello, Eudora. I’m Five. Trying to yank me into this secluded alley so early in the morning isn’t very friendly of you. We could be family one day. Don’t you want to make a better impression than that?” He dropped his arms but stayed close. 

 

Red bloomed on her cheeks and she raised her hands to push against his chest. Five saw, watching her reaction to his greeting, the dark circles under her eyes and the sharp jut of her shoulders in the way she held herself. He wondered if she had been here waiting for Diego, had come here every day since she realized he wasn’t coming around regularly. He stepped back and allowed her a few inches of space, hands at his side. 

 

“Where is Diego?” 

 

“Number Two is at home, attending to his studies and training as he should be.” 

 

Her jaw ticked when he referred to Diego by his number; she exhaled harshly out of her nose, nostrils flaring. “Twenty-four hours a day?” she asked, tone losing the intimidating edge she’d tried to instill in it at first and diving into pure annoyance. 

 

“Of course not. He sleeps at some point, I would imagine.” He continued before she could do anything more than open her mouth in protest, looking unaffected as possible as he smoothed the wrinkles from the front of his jacket and said, “He has been so busy, in fact, that I’m his new delivery boy. Walk inside the gym, open the locker, and see if he gave you the explanation you want so badly. This is clearly none of my business, as a humble mail carrier, so I’ll be back within the week to collect your response.” 

 

Five turned on his heel, temper cooled after his sharp-toned speech, and made to leave. His hands were only just beginning to spark blue when a pleading, “Wait!” came from behind. He pinched the bridge of his nose, electric blue fading as the last flares danced across his cheeks, away from his fingertips. Reluctantly, he did, half-turning when Eudora approached him again. 

 

“I’m sorry,” she said, sincerely but not without effort. “Usually, when Diego goes missing, he’s at least in the news, so I know he’s okay. But I haven’t heard from him in weeks, and the Academy hasn’t had any missions plastered in the papers since. I just want to know if he’s alright.” 

 

Eudora reached out, tentatively, her bandaged hand hovering inches from his arm. 

 

“Diego is fine, and more than annoyed at being kept in the house for so long. He most likely explains everything in the letter I left. He wouldn’t want you to worry about him,” he added awkwardly, but knowing it to be true. 

 

“Yeah, well, he’s an idiot. Of course, I worried about him.” She smiled at him, lips curling up at the corners and her unsure eyes crinkling a tiny bit. “Sorry for the scare.” 

 

“I’ll tell him you’re waiting to see him.” 

 

“Thank you, Five.” Frowning at her name, she asked, “Do you have another name? Like Diego?” 

 

“No. It’s just Five. Nice to meet you, Eudora.” 

 

*****

 

After a block of lessons that occupied his morning, Five had a couple of pages of equations to solve, an exam to study for, and several chapters of two different text books to read, but that was not the work his mind was focused on as he walked down the hall, following the scent of Mom’s cooking. He took his seat at the table for lunch without saying a word to anyone, despite his father’s absence. He only began eating when the rest of his siblings did. Five mechanically devoured a hearty helping of the fresh baked fries and the fruit salad along with two of the hot-off-the-press ham, cheddar, and tomato paninis. As soon as he’d had his fill, Five took his dishes to the sink and thanked Mom for the meal. She sent him her signature lovely smile in response, hands occupied polishing a glass to shining perfection. 

 

Dishes rinsed, he moved away from the sink to let Luther deposit his own and stopped when his brother called out, “Hey, Five.” 

 

Annoyed at being distracted from the chalkboard in his head, Five brusquely said, “Good afternoon, Luther.”  

 

“Do you want to study for the history exam we have coming up? Pogo said it would be covering the last section we studied, which is like ten chapters. It’s a lot to cover. I’m free in about an hour, if you’re interested.” 

 

“No, I’ll be working all afternoon on the fifth floor.” 

 

Luther nodded readily, eyebrows pulled together and mouth attempting a polite smile. “Oh, no problem. Maybe tomorrow, if you aren’t too busy then.” 

 

At his dejected tone, Five refocused on his brother and pushed the frantically calculating side of his mind away. He was starting to realize that prioritizing his siblings over his work was harder than he thought. Five did not like to consider himself set in his ways or unwilling to change; adaptability, a trait coveted in high stress situations, had been instilled in him early on. So, he focused on Luther. Something was obviously bothering his brother, who had just reached out to him, and Five felt obligated to do what he could to help. History never seemed to trouble Luther before, so he couldn’t be entirely sure that Luther was seeking him out for academic help rather than someone to talk to. He would not ignore him, either way. “Ben has been making an extensive review list to cover the important information in each chapter of the section, if you need to get started studying right away. If not, I can meet you in the library tomorrow after our morning exercises and before we have our sociology lesson.” He shrugged, looking nonchalant. “But I have a few new things to try today and need all the time I can get.” 

 

The stress seemed to leave his expression almost instantly. “Yeah, yeah. Thank you. I’ll talk to Ben about his list. The library tomorrow would still be great, if you aren’t too busy.” His bright, sincere smile made Five agree that of course, he could make the time in the morning. With another favor for another brother lined up, Five walked to the kitchen doorway to get started on his work for the day. As he left, he walked past Vanya clearing her things from the table. She smiled at him, smaller and more intimate than the look from Luther. His heart thumped hard against his chest at the warmth in her expression. 

 

He left the room in a few quick steps, fingertips blue and ears red. 

 

His jacket was shrugged off and his tie loosened the minute his feet were on the ground, the bathroom feeling much too warm immediately. He spent a few moments redundantly checking his notes and then leaving them in their haphazard piles on the counter. Five toed off his shoes, checked both of the clocks taped to the mirror to ensure they were in sync. He slipped off the rest of his clothes and changed into a pair of swim trunks before climbing into the bathtub. 

 

The curtain was pulled closed. The shower head was angled straight down. He turned the knobs, waiting for acceptably warm water to flow from the tap before turning the shower head on. Taking a step back, the water pounded just beyond the tips of his toes, splattering the bottom of the tub and soaking his legs, mist settling over his bare arms and torso. He brought his hands to hover on either side of the shower spray and called the energy to the surface. A blue sphere came into shape, about a foot in diameter, encompassing a portion of the shower spray. The suspended trails of water glittered beneath the crackling sphere and the water rolling down the sides of the sphere. While the shower head continued spraying water down, the portion he captured did not move. 

 

Five practiced holding the stalled water spray for nearly an hour, keeping the blue energy at a balanced level for as long as he could. When the shape broke apart after forty-seven minutes, he was fairly pleased. He had progressed in the last few weeks and was sure he would continue to do so. He needed to test a new theory, after all, and if it succeeded, he would be that much further towards understanding how his ability worked. 

 

He jumped to the kitchen after his first trial, gathering a few paninis kept warm in the oven, some bottled waters, and a tall glass of iced tea. Once he returned to his work space, he perched on the lip of the tub and sipped the tea while overlooking the new theory he had outlined a few days ago. It seemed a little outlandish, honestly, but it made sense in a way. If the rules for how he controlled the energy at his fingertips could bend like he theorized, stopping time could be even more useful in high-stress situations than he ever hoped. 

 

The hint of honey Mom had added to the tea clung to the back of his throat after he drained his glass, a sweet reminder of the breaks he would need to keep his energy up. Five set his glass aside and slung his legs over the side of the bathtub. There was work to do. 

 

In minutes, he was back in the position he held for over three quarters of an hour on the first try, the sprawl of his fingers and electricity lighting his veins felt more than familiar. He held his position until he felt confident in it. When he was sure the thrum of power in his hands was steady, that the electricity was strong enough to shape further, he moved his hands. As though he was pulling dough or tugging a sheet in place, his hands moved away from each other. 

 

The electricity followed, losing the sphere formation and instead shaping itself around the path of his hands, enclosing a large cylinder of the shower spray. Over a foot of the falling water stayed in one place, surrounded by dark blue. Five grinned wildly and sprawled his hands further. 

 

For a moment, the blue held. Then, it flickered and fell, the water dropping in a different pattern than the shower spray cascading down around it. He stood panting, water pounding the tops of his feet, and glanced at the clock. 

 

He held a sphere for forty-seven solid minutes, and a few seconds. He held the irregular, stretched shape for three and a half minutes. 

 

His feet sunk into the plush carpet sitting outside of the bathtub, water dripping from his chest down. Only his shoulders and head escaped being soaked, but he scrubbed the towel over his face before drying off nonetheless. Once he was dry, the towel thrown over the shower curtain rod, Five plopped down on the floor in front of the sink and let his head fall back against the wood door of the counter. He snaked a hand over his head, snagging a panini from the plate above him and knocking a bottle of water over so that it rolled off the counter and landed in his free hand. He folded his legs, drink sitting in his lap and sandwich balanced on one knee, and closed his eyes. For a few minutes, he tried to ignore the ticking of the clock as he allowed himself this break. When he went back to work, he would be right back at square one, after all. 

 

*****

 

Fifteen minutes and thirty-two seconds into trial twenty-seven, someone knocked on the door. It did not break Five's concentration, but took enough of it away that his strange, column-like shape of energy wavered and snapped into a perfect sphere hovering between his hands. What of the water he managed to keep covered by the blue energy stayed put, the rest slipping down the drain. He sighed and released the sphere all together, blue sparks dissipating as they scattered down his wrists. Five turned off the faucet and nearly slipped getting out of the tub. 

 

One hand braced on the towel rack on the wall beside the bathtub, he muttered a few curses and held out his free arm to balance himself. He only moved once he felt steady, pruned toes tense against the porcelain. His wet feet stuck to the carpet and slid a little when he stepped on the tile. Five, halfway across the bathroom, glanced between his soaked swim shorts streaking water down his legs and the towel still hanging from the curtain rod in the shower. 

 

“Fucking hell,” he muttered, dragging himself out of Work Mode and into Reality. He made it to the door and swung it open, scowling. 

 

Vanya stood prominently in the doorway with a grinning, hovering Klaus behind her. His brother’s grin widened and he bounced around when the door opened, hands on Seven's shoulders as she smiled a little sheepishly at Five. He noticed they were both dressed in pajamas and looked freshly showered. Perplexed, he spun around to look at the clock. When was the last time he had actually checked the time, and not how long his ability held for? It was more than two hours past dinner, past their assigned bed time. Looking back at his company, he saw Seven holding out a thermos and Four waving his hand around, two blunts tangled between his fingers and a cigarette tucked behind his ear. 

 

Heart in his throat, Five reached for the thermos. His fingers tangled with Vanya’s around the warm container and he smiled at her. He leaned forward, green eyes alight and wicked, scouting the hall for any sort of audience besides Klaus. He determined there was none before darting down to kiss her. 

 

Vanya's fingers tightened around the cup as she surged forward to press her lips to his more firmly. On her tiptoes, Seven used her free hand to grab his arm and steady herself. Five tried not to chuckle into the kiss, reminded of his earlier stumble but unwilling to part from her soft lips and clinging hands. He ignored Klaus's throat-clearing and the laughter that followed shortly. He smoothed a hand over her loose hair, as soft as her kisses. When she pulled away, her cheeks were red and her eyes lingered on his mouth. Five finally allowed himself to laugh, albeit under his breath. Her blush burned brighter and he ushered them inside. 

 

“What, no hello kiss for me?” Klaus pouted, strutting into the room. Five rolled his eyes and blew Four a sarcastic kiss. He caught it and held it close to his heart, invisible token of affection tangled with the blunts in his hand. Four produced two bottles of water emptied and refilled with tea, a lighter, and a bag stuffed with Mom’s chocolate chip cookies from the pockets of the jacket he wore over his button-up flannel top and tossed them on the counter. “We’ve come to inform you that only, irresponsible little brother, did you miss dinner – which is fine, only because Daddy Dearest was out on a business dinner – but it’s also past time to tuck ourselves in for the night.” 

 

He pulled the cigarette from behind his ear and lit it with the lighter from his pocket, disposable and colored like the inside of a watermelon. “Not that we planned on doing that, of course.” 

 

“We brought dinner,” Vanya said. “I figured you’d be hungry, and Klaus wanted to get away for a little while.” 

 

Five noticed they were wearing thick socks, slippers, and their warmest pajamas, thick flannel sets that Mom gave to all of the children a few days ago. They did not officially celebrate holidays in the Hargreeves home, but Mom and Pogo often found things the children needed around the right times and made a point of presenting the things they had bought. A month or so after they turned eleven, Pogo insisted they should be encouraging the children’s hobbies a bit more, in order to ensure they were properly educated in the interest. Half of Luther’s models currently strung from his ceiling came from that shopping trip, as well as the set of knives that gave Eudora her soulmark and so many books for Ben that Mom managed to slip his treasured copy of  _Goblet of Fire_  without Reginald noticing. For their well-timed winter gifts this year, it was pajamas and coats. He rather liked the double-breasted pea coat she gave him. The dark gray color suited him well. 

 

He doubted that his swim trunks would suit their plans well. He opened the thermos, the smell of Mom’s vegetable stew warming him before it even reached his mouth. The stew was warm and hearty. He hadn’t even realized how cold he’d been, working in the water for so long. His toes looked like raisins. 

 

The thermos was still half full when he put the cap back on, trading it for a tea that Klaus left on the counter. “I think I’ll need to change before we go anywhere.” 

 

Klaus gave him an exaggerated one-over and shrugged, saying, “If it weren’t for the shriveled toes, you’d look fine.” 

 

“Wow, thanks.” 

 

He dodged the kiss Four blew him by jumping first into the shower to snatch his towel from the curtain rod and then to his bedroom, the phantom of Vanya’s quiet giggles following him. His feet slipped when he stepped onto the wooden floor of his bedroom and his breath hitched, chest constricted. Shaking it off and still smiling at the thought of his new plans for the night, Five hurried to peel his wet shorts from his legs and dry off. Naked and finally feeling the cold, he shivered as he ruffled through his dresser, extracting the new flannels and a matching pair of wool socks, dyed dark red. A sigh of relief escaped him when he was dressed and halfway to a normal body temperature once more. Some more rummaging, through the shoe rack in his closet this time, produced the slippers with padded bottoms and arbitrary buttons on the tops. Allison enjoyed sliding through the halls in a twin pair when she was in a particularly good mood. 

 

Klaus and Vanya were sniping at each other when he stepped back into the bathroom, dressed for the trip and with a thick quilt draped over one arm. His grin widened. 

 

“-sure he’ll be right back-” 

 

“-gonna take  _foreverrrr_ -” 

 

“Klaus, good to see you haven’t wasted away while I was gone.” 

 

His brother turned around, rolling his eyes. “You should be. Now, let’s get going. We don’t need to go far. One of the empty shopfronts would do, I like the one that used to be a pet store. It has the best carpet to lay on and get existential, I swear-” 

 

“Is that our plan, then? To lie on a carpet that hasn’t been vacuumed in over a decade and mule over our place in the world?” He helped Vanya to collect their things, passing Four the drinks to stuff back in his pockets but not the cookies. They were already half-smashed from careless handling. 

 

Klaus snorted. “Please, you think Mom doesn’t clean every inch of this square block at least one a month? She doesn’t sleep, little brother. Lucky for us, tonight she’s occupied deep cleaning all the taxidermy – wiping down the horns and the teeth, dusting the nooks and crannies.” He mimicked dusting something as he danced towards the bathroom door, forgetting Five had little need for sneaking through the house when he could go where he wanted instantaneously. 

 

He reached for the familiar energy in his hands and noticed the waning of it, how sluggish it was to spark to life now that he was warm and feeling the stress of the day. There was a headache blooming behind his eyes and his arms and shoulders were stiff. His stomach growled and he let the electricity disperse. Sneaking through the house like a normal kid would be alright, he guessed. Taking two people with him a few floors down wouldn’t knock him out, but he wouldn’t feel much like making merry afterwards. 

 

“I would like to note that it’s weird you have Mom’s exact schedule pinned down,” Five said, snagging Vanya’s hand and tugging her after Klaus. The soft look and squeeze of her fingers around his made him smile wide. “Now, lead on, fearless leader.” 


End file.
